


One of the Lights

by whendocloudssleep



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shop, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:17:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whendocloudssleep/pseuds/whendocloudssleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is not the type of person to say that he hates his job, even though he’s not going out of the way to say that he loves it either.</p><p>He’s a writer, and in writing there’s a lot of time spent doing nothing, nothing, more nothing, writing a little bit and then sleeping like he’s just run down corridors and alleys away from something that wanted to tear him limb from limb. Of course, in four or so hours he’s up and at it again because the life of a writer does not lend well to sleeping. There’s always work to be done and changes to be made, and as much as he wants to stay curled up on his couch or in his bed, he cannot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One of the Lights

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this in November for NaNoWriMo. I failed.
> 
> I haven't read most of this since then, and I haven't edited it or had anyone else to read it. I'm pretty sure that it's fine, but I'm just putting that out there.

The Doctor is not the type of person to say that he hates his job, even though he’s not going out of the way to say that he loves it either.

He’s a writer, and in writing there’s a lot of time spent doing nothing, nothing, more nothing, writing a little bit and then sleeping like he’s just run down corridors and alleys away from something that wanted to tear him limb from limb. Of course, in four or so hours he’s up and at it again because the life of a writer does not lend well to sleeping. There’s always work to be done and changes to be made, and as much as he wants to stay curled up on his couch or in his bed, he cannot. 

The only saving grace of getting up is the fact that there’s a coffee shop a few streets over from his apartment, and they make the best latte that he has ever tasted. They don’t mind when he tumbles through the door a little after opening and spends the day tucked in front of his laptop buying cup after cup of coffee and tries to talk Jamie, and now that he’s gone, Romana and Grace, into going to get him sandwiches from the deli across the street. It normally doesn’t work and he has to go get them himself, but they make sure no one steals his stuff (and they get to take peeks at what he was working on. He pretends he doesn’t know).

Recently, the TARDIS is the only place that he seems to be able to get any work done. (He’s still not sure what TARDIS stands for, but he likes it that way. He can decide his own name for it this way.)

Today, as he walks in it’s a little past noon and the room is almost empty, but it’s warm and the heat sinks into his skin through his coat and gloves and hat and his ears are already thawing. Even growing up in the perpetually chill of Gallifrey, his small hometown in Ireland, he has never the biggest fan of cold weather. His regular table is covered with his things in quick succession, and then he’s ordering a coffee (pumpkin spice and mocha something-or-other. The TARDIS is the only place that serves pumpkin anything in early January) and as soon as his fingers touch his keyboard words are spilling out of him.

Twenty minutes later, he’s reaching into his bag and trying to get out the sandwich he got before coming in today, trying to unwrap it and eat while still typing away at his computer. It’s slow work but he doesn’t have to stop working to eat.

When he’s finished a second drink is ordered (chai tea, he thinks and he’s sure that he’s going to regret that decision in an hour but it was what Leela was drinking and he figures he can try it), and he gets back to work with the taste of his lunch lingering in his mouth as he wonders if Sarah Jane (the owner and current manager of the TARDIS) made the blueberry muffins today, or if she pushed them off on Jo, who is a good enough baker but is better with the lemon cake strips than she is with anything blueberry.

He gets a muffin, and a lemon cake thing, and another kind of fluffy pastry that he takes one bite of before spitting it into his hand. Grace is trying to hide a laugh as she cleans the counter and the machines and Donna, the newest hire, is looking at him like he’s a fool.

She places a napkin over his hand, and flips them so that she’s holding the half-chewed bite in her hand. She wads the napkin up and tosses the tiny bundle in the trash can that rests under her side of the counter. John Smith, or the Doctor as his loyal readers (and everyone else) know him, offers to buy her a cookie for her troubles.

She gives him a look, and he thinks that if she weren’t new, if she weren’t unsure of the way that everything works in the TARDIS, if she had more confidence in her place that she would probably be telling him off right now.

Instead of testing her limits more, he wanders back to his table, snacks in hand.

If a few minutes later he’s taking a bite of the same awful pastry before he doesn’t show it. Donna has been staring at him between serving other customers and re-stocking shelves. He doesn’t want to give her any more reason to dislike him already, even though he hasn’t done anything.

The next day goes much the same only the Doctor is more bedraggled and sleepy having stayed awake all night, pouring his homebrewed and inferior coffee down his throat to keep awake, rushing through the doors the moment Sarah Jane unlocks them at six o’clock.

After he sits down, he doesn’t move until nine when his coffee has gone cold and he has to go to the bathroom. There are a surprising number of people in the coffeehouse, so he waits another fifteen minutes for things to slow down enough that he won’t feel bad for having Sarah Jane (who is working to train Donna currently) keep an eye on his computer. There’s really nothing else there that’s worth any value to another person. Just a leather bag that’s falling apart, nineteen sheets of white printer paper that is covered with lines of verses that he once memorized, and a mostly full cup of cold coffee.

He has a sneaking suspicion that Donna gave him decaf instead of the black regular that he ordered, because as he types he can feel his eyes starting to droop closed. He thinks about complaining to Sarah but even though Donna seems to not like him, she hasn’t done anything terrible like pour a few tablespoons of salt into his cup. He’s just becoming more tired more quickly than he had previously hoped he would. Triple saving, he packs everything up and heads out. At least he got a good chunk of writing done last night. That will keep his editor happy, or happy adjacent. Mr. Rassilon is not a happy person by nature.

It doesn’t help that the Master, a slightly deranged man that works with the same people as the Doctor, has just finished three novels at once in a month and a half and they’re good. Rassilon calls the Doctor four times a day to see where he is at with his latest attempt at writing the novel he’s put on the back-burner four times in lieu of more pressing things.

It’s a struggle not to snap at him that it’s not a competition.

As he’s walking out of the heat and good smells of the coffeeshop, he gets the first- no, second, of these daily calls. Sliding the screen to answer, he thinks that he must not have heard it ring last time.

“Hello?” Reverse shibboleth happens as he speaks because he knows it is his editor, but he still speaks as if he’s completely in the dark. There’s slowness to his speaking and as he walks along the sidewalk, he is tripping and stumbling and he’s sure that in a minute he’s going to be flat on his face in the middle of the street.

Rassilon is angry, roaring out his name and cursing and telling his secretary that if the Doctor ignores another of his calls than he will be shuffled off to another editor because he doesn’t have time to deal with finicky writers that don’t answer their phones.

“Shouldn’t you be directing all of this at me?” interrupts the Doctor. He’s trying to save the secretary even though he doesn’t know her name. He’s not even sure if she has a name. He thinks that that’s something he should learn.

The angry ranting cuts off. “What makes you think that I wasn’t? I know you aren’t a fool. I know you were paying attention. Or at least you should have been, but I don’t mind. I can repeat it if you weren’t.” There’s a low menace there that bleeds back into a warm rage again towards the end.

“I was. I was paying attention. And I didn’t answer your call earlier, because I was so busy writing that I didn’t notice anything. Not even my coffee, which, as you know, is normally what keeps me going. I am just on a roll today. Or I was. I’m going to sleep now, because otherwise I’m going to fall into the gutter and I’ll be in the morning paper. I can see it now. ‘Young Author found beaten, broken, run over, and dead in a storm drain.’ Of course, if it happens I won’t be able to see it having died after being beaten and run over.”

The Doctor thinks that Rassilon is trying to process the chunk of rambling text that was just thrown at him, but he can’t be sure. It’s quiet on the other end of the phone, and he checks to see that he hasn’t been hung up on because that is just the thing that he needs to happen least in his relationship with his editor. They’ve been on shaky ground for ages, and he thinks that after this book finally gets finished they’ll have a talk about if they are really suited to still be working together.

Nine years is a long time, and the Doctor wouldn’t be where he is today if he hadn’t met Rassilon in a bar and drunkenly promised him that he could have a copy of the manuscript that he was celebrating having finished. That doesn’t mean that either of them needs to be saddled with each other if they would each work better with someone else. It’s not a conversation that he’s looking forward to having, so when the older man speaks the Doctor pushes it to the back of his mind.

Rassilon has decided to ignore the last half of what the Doctor had said, which would be shocking and possibly rude if that wasn’t what normally happened. “That’s good. Keep it up. I am running out of things to read, and I’ve been anxious for this novel for years.”

Neither of those things are as true as they could be, because there’s always something for Rassilon to read, and he’s been saying that if he can’t get it to work, the Doctor should just trash the idea once and for all.

“I will.” He is approaching his apartment complex now, and he can’t remember the last time he was so relieved to see a building. Maybe last Christmas when he flew home to see his family (who had all been surprised at how many American colloquialisms he had picked up while living there. He’s back in London now, but he’s thinking about heading back out there and getting another change of scenery).

“Okay. Good. Goodbye.”

Generally when Rassilon isn’t angry or excited at you, he doesn’t have much to say. The Doctor has words that spill out of him until he can’t keep them in sometimes, and these differences have always kept the phone conversations between editor and author as short as possible, which at times has not been that short at all.

-

Before you get to know her, Donna Noble can be a handful.  
Well, he’s sure that she is still a handful after you’ve gotten to know her, but he’s still in the not knowing her yet, and he’s giving her the benefit of the doubt. He doesn’t want to automatically assume the worst of anyone. That has ended badly in the past. 

At least she seems to have taken to not glaring at him all the time now. He thinks that talking to Sarah Jane about that when she sat down with him on her break was a good idea. Of course, by talking to her boss he could have been making Donna decide that he was not worth getting to know even though he’s the most regular of all of the TARDIS’ regular customers. He’s hoping that that isn’t the case.

She serves him his coffee with a straight face that’s replaced the glare from last week and after a glance towards the door, he speaks.

“So, Ms. Noble. Donna. How are you today?” He takes a sip here in a way that hopefully reads as casual, but probably misses the mark as he scolds his tongue.

That gets a scowl sent at him. 

“I’m working, Spaceman, how d’you think I am?”

“Spaceman?”

She stops scowling at him to start wiping down everything. Sarah likes everything cleaned whenever possible. “You’re always so far in your head or so busy typing out whatever it is your working on. Sarah Jane has sat down with you eight times this past week and you’ve noticed, maybe three.”

He thinks back to the last few days and can’t remember Sarah Jane sitting down with him.

“Oh. I didn’t realize. I should- I should apologize for that.” He takes a sip of coffee, careful of the hot liquid this time, and makes a quick half step towards the table where his laptop is waiting for him. “I’ll just go and get to work then.”

“Good idea.”

The Doctor thinks that if he hadn’t just told Donna that he was going to get to work that he would reward himself, but instead he just gets to work, keeping an eye out for Sarah Jane if she sits down with him.

Which she does about four hours, three pastries, and another cup of coffee later.

He saves his work and focuses all of his attention on his friend. “I’m sorry if I’ve ignored you this week. I’m just on a roll and I need to keep on it.”

He wonders if he sounds as sincere as he feels when she lets out a small laugh. Her smile looks real, but he’s not sure if he would be able to pick out a fake smile when his head is still wrapped up in fiction.

“It’s not just this week, Doctor.” She, like everyone, calls him by his pen name. He hates John Smith. It’s too boring and doesn’t fit with the way that he sees himself. “I have spent quite a lot of time sitting here, and watching you write. It doesn’t bother me when you don’t notice. If it did, I wouldn’t continue to it.”

He nods, and thinks about getting back to work. He’s noticed her this time and that would be rude. He’s not always the nicest man but he tries. Sometimes.

Sarah Jane must notice his flickering gaze and the way his fingers tap at his legs underneath the table because she speaks, “I’m really glad that you noticed today. I have some news.”

The Doctor perks up a bit. He likes when things happen. When things aren’t happening he tends to get bored and when he gets bored, he can’t write. It may be harder to write when you’re attending things and vacationing and taking dance lessons every night of the week (even though he doesn’t remember anything that he learned in those lessons), but at least in those times he actually is writing.

“I’ve filed the paperwork, and I’m looking to adopt a little boy.” There’s a tentative smile on his face, and he eyes are shining with hope. “Actually when I say little boy, I mean a practically teenage boy. He’s twelve and his name is Luke. He’s very sweet.”

“Why would you adopt someone so old?” is not the first question that the Doctor meant to ask, but he can’t take it back now. “Shouldn’t you want a toddler, or something? Someone younger. Possibly better behaved because you’ll be the one to really raise them?” By the way that the smile is fading quickly off of Sarah Jane’s face he thinks that maybe he should have left it with just the first question. It was very likely that he was only making things worse.

“It’s harder to find homes for the older children for all of those exact reasons. And Luke is lovely. He’s been wonderful every time that I’ve gone to see him, and I am certain that that isn’t going to change once all the paperwork has cleared. Plus, if in a few years things are going smoothly with Luke, I can look into adopting a younger child. I’ve thought this through.”

She’s drinking her tea, because Sarah only drinks tea, in a way that says that she is ready to be out of this conversation but to get up before being finished would be rude.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t thinking. I’m happy for you! I am.” He smiles. “If anyone deserves to be happy you do, my Sarah Jane, and if… Luke?”

She nods.

“If Luke will make you happy then go for it.” Sarah is probably the nicest person that he’s ever been around long enough to tell that she isn’t being nice just because he’s a moderately popular author. She’s nice to everyone that isn’t trying to demean and mistreat one of her employees and even though she has a dog, a loveable thing called K-9, there’s a noticeable edge of loneliness there sometimes. 

Maybe that is why she just sits with him while he is writing. She’s hardly ever alone in the shop but there is a large difference between being alone and being lonely. 

She’s back to grinning at him now, and he feels the smile on his own face growing to match. “I think he will. I’m excited for everything to be finalized. There’s still a couple of months left but things are moving along pretty fast.”

They chat until her break is over, talking about what a teenage boy might need, and wondering how K-9 will react to Sarah Jane’s attentions now longer being solely on him. It is different than usual. There’s less mindless small–talk that he can keep up with while not having to get too distracted from whatever his train of though was before he noticed his his across from him.

“You’ll have to meet Luke soon. When everything is settled and official.” It might be small, but Sarah’s face lights up each time that she mentions Luke. To have her so proud of opening up and letting someone in makes him proud to call her a friend. “I think you would like him.”

With a smile in reply, he stands with her and leans forward to pull her into a tight hug. “I really am so very happy for you.”

She pulls away and straightens her shirt and apron saying, “I know.” before heading back towards the counter to get to work. The Doctor doesn’t miss the way that Donna says “finally”, before counting a customer’s change back to them. He also doesn’t miss the smile that she sends him a couple of seconds later.

When he settles back in to work he gets another quarter of a chapter done, before having to go to the loo. After doing his business he goes to order a coffee, but instead of taking his order or serving him, Donna just looks minorly irritated. He heads back to his seat in the hopes that if he gives her a few minutes she will decide that yes, she will make him a coffee and give him one of those muffins and that scone he had his eye on plus also yes that cake pop. 

Instead of finding only his laptop, sitting alone on the table, he spots a cup of coffee and a croissant waiting for him. He rushes over to grab the cup, before returning to stand in front of Donna. “Did you leave this for me?”

“It was bought by a good Samaritan who asked me not to give out their name.” He would almost believe her, but she’s got an I’m-trying-not-to-look-guilty-but-it-was-me look on her face.

He lets her get away with it though, nodding. “They didn’t put anything in it though, did they?”

“No, you’re good. You should get back to work.”

“I really should. I was on a good kick before.” And he saunters over to his table plopping down and taking a giant bite of the croissant, before wiping his fingers on his pants, starting to type again.

In the corner of his eye something moves, and second later someone is knocking on the table. It’s Donna and she catches his coffee before he can knock it over completely and ruin something. There is a small bunch of napkins in her hand and she’s sitting them next to his computer, saying “Oi, you’ll ruin your pants that way,” before walking back to the counter.

-

Things seem to continue like that for weeks. Snow falls and cakes on the ground making the short walk from the Doctor’s flat more and more like torture that he forgets when he finally makes it back into the heat. 

Sarah Jane comes to sit with him, and when he notices she tells him more about Luke and how things are going and how she might need help painting Luke’s room when he gets to her house. 

Donna doesn’t leave him any more treats, but she spends some of her breaks sitting with him. Unlike Sarah Jane, she forces him to pay attention to her. After a couple of days, he decides that in another world she would be the perfect editor.

He gets a good chunk of writing done, and he lets his phone die one too many times and Rassilon has to actually leave his office to find him. It’s only the fact that the Doctor is in a public place and there’s another few thousand words triple saved on his computer that keeps him from having to remember how to drink coffee around a swollen lip.

He spends his days waiting for something to happen, typing and yawning and sleeping and drinking enough coffee that he’s sure Sarah Jane is going to have Donna and Ace and Jo and Grace cut him off (That never happens and he is especially glad. It wouldn’t really matter anyway because he would just go home and make his own coffee there).

When the call does come that something has happened, the Doctor wants desperately to go back to having nothing exciting going on in his life. It seems that Gallifrey and Skarro, another small town in Ireland, have finally given in to the small battles that they’ve been waging since what seems like the beginning of time. The Doctor isn’t sure if he still counts as a citizen of Gallifrey since he hasn’t been back for any single time period for longer than a week since he was able to get himself out, but it doesn’t seem to matter. They want him to join them to fight, and it doesn’t really make sense to him but there it is.

He groans and packs his things and saves his work to multiple external hard drives and hides them in places around the flat that he will hopefully be able to find when he gets back. The last time that he went home, he was unable to work, and someone had poured milk into his keyboard while he was looking in his bag for a pencil. He had not lost too much work, but he had had to rewrite the section no less than eight times and he still wasn’t happy with it. 

He buys a plane ticket, and goes to the TARDIS for a quick cuppa before he has to head to the airport.

Donna is working with Sarah Jane today, and he’s glad of it. He hopes that he won’t be gone for too long. He likes getting to see them everyday, likes getting to write as Sarah Jane sits across from him, likes when Donna writes a note of encouragement on a napkin and slips it onto the table as she goes to stock the shelves. They’ve built up habits. While the Doctor is close with the other people who work at the TARDIS, Donna and Sarah Jane are the only ones who have moved past acquaintances and have become friends.

The only friends he really has, if he’s being honest which he tries not to do. They’ve been there and have helped him through the book, but he’s pretty sure that after this trip home he’s going to have to shelve it again. Going home has always brought out the darkness and anger in him, and that’s not something that he wants in this novel.

This novel is supposed to be light and whimsical and different and maybe that is why he’s been unable to finish it so far.

“Donna!” He yells, walking towards the counter with his bags on his shoulders and swinging dangerously around him. He thinks that maybe he should have set them down at a table before walking up to her, but it’s too late now. They do slide down his arms as he stops as the counter though, his laptop landing more gently on the floor. “I have to go back home for a while.”

She’s mopping the floor, and he can see where some milk had probably been spilled. “Okay, Spaceman, what d’you want me to do about it? Got a cat you need fed? Plants that need watering?” They may be friends now, but Donna is still as brash as ever. 

“Nope, none of that. I don’t think I’d do very well, with a pet. Or plants, for that matter.” 

“Than what did you come for?”

“A coffee, mainly. And to say goodbye. Didn’t want to just not be coming in anymore. Thought you might think that something terrible had happened.” Something terrible has happened, but he hopes that in the even that he doesn’t come in for an extended period of time that they will assume that he isn’t okay. He thinks that when he gets back, he’ll take them out to dinner. He doesn’t get to spend nearly enough time with them outside of this building.

“Did you say you’re going somewhere?” Sarah Jane has made her way over from where she was stocking the new shipment of cups that they had gotten in to replace the Christmas ones currently on clearance. “Where’re you going?”

“He says he’s going home for a while. Didn’t say why though.” Donna sticks the mop back into its bucket and quickly washes her hands. “Family probably thinks he’s been away for too long or something. What did you want?”

She takes his order and begins to make the drink while he talks to Sarah Jane. “I really shouldn’t be gone too long. I’m pretty good at getting out of whatever they need me to do.”

“Is there anything I can do?” She looks as though she’s trying to think of something to suggest she do, but he shakes his head.

“I’m really fine. There’s nothing that needs doing back at the flat, and I’m going to be in Ireland, so there’s nothing you can do to help me directly. Not unless you’re planning on moving the TARDIS there, because that would be lovely.” His coffee is ready and he grabs it from Donna. His eyes land on his watch, and he looks out the windows at the front of the shop. “Really, I’m fine. I might be late if my taxi doesn’t show up soon, but I’m fine.”

As he finishes speaking, the distinct car pulls up in front of the building.

“Perfect timing.” Sarah Jane says, and then she’s leaning forward and moving her arms to wrap around his neck. He puts his around her waist and, careful of his coffee, squeezes her tightly. They pull away and then it’s Donna that’s moving to hold him. The Doctor is surprised, but he holds onto her as well.

When they pull apart, all three of them are smiling and the Doctor sits his cup on the counter so that he can grab all of his bags. Donna and Sarah Jane have to take steps back to avoid the messy swinging of the bags as he turns around to pick up his cup, and then again as he turns towards the door.

They call out encouragements and goodbyes as he walks, and he can’t remember the last time he was okay with going home. He’s not happy about it, but he knows that he’s got friends now that are waiting for him with open arms, and caffeine.

It is a struggle to get his bags and then himself into the cab without spilling his coffee, but somehow he manages to do it. He thinks about doing the cliché ‘looking back from the cab as you ride away’ thing, but he forces himself to watch the buildings pass by next to him instead. He doesn’t have to look back to remember, because they’ll be right there when he gets back.

-LALALATIMESKIPNOTHINGTOSEEHEREDOOTDOOTDOOT-

When the Doctor finally gets back to his flat, he feels like a different man. He had spent the last two and a half months trying to play peacekeeper between the Gallifreyan and Skaarian, only to have it all blow up in his face. Literally.

After he opens the windows and gives the dust somewhere to go, he thinks for a moment about tearing all of the knick kknick-knacks off of the shelves and the art off of the walls and taking a kitchen knife to the couch cushion, but as he sits down it’s all he can do to keep the tears from falling from his eyes. It doesn’t work and he wants desperately to go back to the anger from before.

He scrubs at his face before deciding to clean his home. He’ll feel better if he cleans, that’s what his mother- no. He’s not going to think those things and send himself down that path. Not when he’s just resolved himself.

He leaves the flat and goes shopping. He gets a new leather jacket, and a long tan coat and tweed that a professor would wear, a suit, and trainers, a bow tie for special occasions. Ignoring the fact that it’s Mid-May and warm outside, he slips into the leather jacket letting the warm weight settle on his shoulders. The sun beats down on him, and he takes his purchases back home. There’s no point in carrying it all around with him.

When he gets there he feels trapped again, trapped like he was trapped in Ireland, trapped like he never has to feel again, so he heads out. Grabbing his laptop bag, he heads for his favorite place in the world. If anything could make him feel better it’s the TARDIS. He just needs a cup of coffee (decaf, he thinks. He hasn’t really slept in weeks) and to see Donna and Sarah Jane. 

It feels different when he walks inside. He thinks that it’s because he doesn’t know the woman behind the register, or the other girl who is pouring whipped cream onto a smoothie. It isn’t until he’s approaching the counter that he notices that it’s been repainted. The black and white and burgundy has been replaced by oranges and greens and blue, and he wonders how that wasn’t the first thing his eyes went to. 

He’s sure he looks a right sight, spinning around in the middle of the room. He’s trying to catalogue every little thing that changed. The shelves where you can buy a mug or prepackaged coffee seem to be some sort of grating that’s been covered in glass.

The one place that he had hoped would be the same has changed almost entirely. He can see that the counter hasn’t really changed. The glass case where they keep the pastries is the same as ever, and there are different items offered, the writing on the menu board is the same. At least he knows that Donna is still here. He had sat on the counter watching her change the menu until Sarah Jane had made him stand up with the excuse that counters were no place for sitting.

(She had sat down where he had just been, so he’s pretty sure that she just wanted a seat.)

“Oi! What’re you doing?”

The Doctor knows that voice so he stops looking over the place and turns to face the irritated red head that just yelled at him. “I was taking in all the changes, but if that bothers you I’m sure that there’s somewhere else that I could go.”

He uses his thumb to point to the door behind him even though he’s really hoping that she doesn’t take him up on his offer.

“Doctor?” She’s rushing around the counter now, flinging her arms around his neck and holding him close. “I didn’t recognize you with all the spinning you were doing, Spaceman. It’s been ages.”

He wraps his arms around her too, and holds her close. This is the closest that he’s been to anyone in months without worrying that they were going to try and strangle him if he let his guard down. His heart is beating so fast that it feels like he’s got two of them pounding away in there.

She runs her hands against the new leather of his jacket, and even though he can’t see her face he can tell what confused expression she’s wearing. “Why d’you have this on? It’s May. It’s too hot for leather.”

“I just wanted to wear it. Is there something wrong with that?” She loosening her grip now, and it makes him want to hold her closer. He lets her go instead and readjusts his bag, lets himself scrub a hand through his hair, a habit that usually only comes out when he’s frustrated. “Besides it’s quite comfortable in here. Even with the jacket on.”

“Whatever you say.” Donna walks back around the counter to start making him a coffee. When she pauses she turns to look at him. “Are you still open to trying anything, or do you want it a specific way?”

“No. I’m fine with whatever.” He thinks that some things have changed while he was gone, but he still has no major coffee preferences. “Maybe make it a decaf though.”

She nods and laughs a bit, filling the cup. “Last time I did that you got so angry at me. You didn’t say anything, but I could tell by the way you kept sending tired looking glares at me as you left. Made sure never to do it again. Martha, ring him up.”

The girl at the cash register nods and does so.

The Doctor decides to introduce himself. “Oh, hello. I’m John, but you can call me the Doctor. Everyone does.”

A smile forms on her face as she looks up at him, “I’m Martha. Martha Jones. And your total is…”  
He digs into his pockets, handing her the money quickly before grabbing the coffee from Donna, who has moved back over to stand near them.

“So…” He looks around the place and fails entirely at being casual. “Where’s Sarah Jane? Is she off today?” It’s not that he wants to disturb her on her day off if she is, but he wants to see her.

“Yes. Just like every other day. She’s not the manager anymore.”

“What?” He almost drops his coffee in shock. As it is, he manages to burn his mouth. “What do you mean she isn’t the manager anymore? The TARDIS is her shop! She has to be here.”

“Well, she’s not. She’s at home with Luke. When everything was settled, she decided that she wanted to spend more time at home. She still owns the shop, she just left it for me to run.” Donna looks proud and irritated and like he should be expecting a slap to the head. “I’m the manager now.”

“Donna! That’s wonderful.” He might be sad that Sarah Jane won’t be there on a regular basis anymore, he’s glad that Donna was the one to replace her. “Where’s everyone else?”

She looks guilty for a moment, and Martha is fiddling with the knick-knacks that they have around the register for people to buy at the last minute. Then Donna straightens her shoulders and holds her head up and looks angry. “They weren’t fond of the way that I got promoted before any of them, so they left. They all left. We had to hire new people. Like Martha here.” She wraps an arm around her shoulder and pulls her close. Martha looks like this is something that Donna has done before.

She lets go to wipe down the machinery and the Doctor takes a couple of steps so that he’s closer to being in the middle of the two of them, only he’s across the counter from them. “They’re all good people. Amy, she’s the one over there restocking the shelves and pretending to ignore us, is a bit feisty, and Jackie, Rose’s mother, is someone to avoid when she comes in to visit, but they’re nice.”

He’s unsure of what to say, but he nods and makes a mental note that anyone named Jackie is someone he does not want to get mixed up with. He takes another sip of his coffee and studies Amy for a moment. She seems to be little more than a teenager, red hair curling around her shoulders and he envies her a bit for it. He’s never had the guts to become a ginger. Maybe he will soon.

“Are you sure Sarah Jane isn’t going to come in today?”

“No, Doctor. She only comes in if there’s an emergency. And don’t think about doing something dangerous to get her to show up. It’s not going to work.” She sends him a look that is oddly reminiscent of the ones she used to throw at him. “Why don’t you go sit down and get some work done, yeah?”

“Well…” he starts to say, but she’s still sending that look at him so instead he nods. “Yes. I will do that.”

It’s been a long time since he’s written anything. Being in Ireland seems to have made him unable to write anything. He stares at the words on his screen, quickly reading through it. Shaking his head, he opens a new document. He can’t find the state of mind that he had been in while writing all of that, and at least this was something he had been expecting before he went away.

He spends a few minutes sipping at his coffee before he just decides to type. Maybe something will come out of it, and if not he will have exercised his fingers. He doesn’t want to cramp up if he gets an idea.

Mostly what comes out is his sadness. He types about missing Sarah Jane, about hating his family and hating himself for what he did. He writes that he wants to be able to run so far away that not even time can hold him. He wants to forget. 

Forgetting.

He clicks open another word document, and starts writing. It may fall to pieces, and not be worth anything but he has to do something. He can’t write hopeful and happy when he’s feeling like he’s been thrown into the sea and left to drown. This he can write though. A man, who doesn’t know who he really is, is pulled out of his time and the woman who loves him is forced to take care of him. He doesn’t know any more of the plot, only that it’s sure to end badly. He doesn’t have a happy ending waiting inside of him.

He stops writing to get a muffin, and smiles into it. He’s been living on take-out, cereal, and ramen, except for the fact that he can’t remember if he’s eaten since he got back. He finishes the muffin too quickly, and it’s only after he’s eating two slices of banana nut bread that he asks Donna to keep an eye on his stuff as he goes to get a sandwich.

As he eats he reads what he’s written, and calls Rassilon. He needs to tell him famthe other people that Rassilon has to deal with that the Doctor believes him. 

After that it’s only a little while before he’s ready to go home and finally sleep. He calls out a goodbye to Donna, Martha and Amy, the feisty ginger who rang up his muffin and banana bread. As he leaves he bumps into a blonde girl. They both apologize quickly, before he rushes out and she rushes in.

-

The next day he has a dinner meeting with Rassilon. It’s something that he was avoiding even before he went away, but he can’t put it off any longer. There comes a time when you have to stop running away from your problems and face them head on, that’s one thing that Ireland taught him.

After he finishes making sure that his hair looks accurately spiked and disheveled the Doctor heads to get some writing done in the hopes that if he can finish the third chapter before dinner he can score some points with Rassilon. It probably isn’t going to work, but there’s always the chance that today will be his lucky, and Rassilon will tell the Doctor that he’s amazing and that he gets to change editors and that he didn’t ruin his family’s life by getting their home exploded.

Well, he is amazing, but he’s not sure how he would feel about the other two in the long run. After being with Rassilon for so long, having someone who could actually tolerate him critiquing him might not end so well. And he’s the one whose actions let not only his family, but also most of his hometown be exploded. That’s not something he’s going to be getting over anytime soon.

He decides to take the stairs down. It’s a change from sitting in the same place all of the time. If there was a way for him to run and still be able to write he would. The Doctor decides that maybe he should look into getting back into a habit of running. Maybe he will sign up for the city’s 5k marathon. That could be fun.

When he gets to the TARDIS it’s empty in the way that a place is only on a weekday before five o’clock. There are a few teenagers skipping class, and college kids writing papers at the last minute. It’s a group of people that he fits in with: Slackers and lounge-abouts. 

He sits his laptop on his usual table, and heads to order a coffee and a snack. It isn’t that he’s particularly hungry, but there’s always the chance that dinner will go terribly and he will have to run out before his plate has even gotten to the table (It’s happened before and it was one of the worst experiences in his life, second only to losing his family). The girl behind the counter isn’t anyone that he’s seen before. She’s blonde and she’s swaying a bit mouthing the words to the song playing through the radio, but when she notices him looking at her she stops. 

“Hello! I’m Rose! Can I get you anything?” There’s a grin on her face, but her eyes are wide.

He walks up to the counter and tells her what he wants, pulling money out of his pocket for her to tuck into the cash register. “I’m the Doctor, by the way.”

Her movements slow for a split second before she picks up in pouring his coffee. He stuck with something plain today, and he’s glad because that means that she’s back to looking at him quickly. “They warned me about you. Donna and Sarah Jane, I mean. They said that you like sitting for hours doing little more than burning your tongue, complaining about it, and then trying to get someone to get you food from the places on the street no matter how many times they say no.”

“They told you all of that?” He takes a drink, and he burns his tongue. He doesn’t say anything about it though, just makes a face that he hopes she’ll put down to the gossip he’s hearing about himself. 

She might understand though because she laughs, and her laugh is possibly the best sound that he’s heard in his entire life. He wants to think of something to compare it to, but all that comes to mind are fairies coming back to life and angels getting wings. “One of the stipulations of being hired was that I didn’t do your bidding. I think they have it out for you.”

“I’m sure they do, but they’re my friends. I’m used to it by now.” She leans over to grab the pastry he wanted from the case to slide it across the counter to him. He glances back at his bag just to check and she follows where he looks. “Is that all that you need?”

The smile is still on her face and he wants to know what changed when she looked at his stuff. “I think so. They didn’t give you a limit on the amount of treats that I can buy did they? Because that might be a problem.”

“Nope. No limits on things from here.” Her grin grows and her tongue peeks out, but he doesn’t get much of a look at it because her face shifts into a mask of confusion. “I don’t think so at least. I’ll ask Donna when she comes in later. It’s only Amy and I right now.”

He watches her turn to look into the back and this time his eyes are the ones that match where she’s looking. There’s a bobbing head of red hair just on the other side of the glass. He thinks that she must be dancing for all of the moving around that she’s doing but he could be wrong. She could be trying to run away from a mouse that’s gotten into the break room.

“Good. About the no limit thing. I’m not sure I would want to be the only one working with her.” He doesn’t want to stop talking to her. She seems nice and she’s pretty and he doesn’t know anything else about her but he wants to. He wants to know what she looks like in the morning with last night’s leftover make-up still on her face, and what her favorite color is, and the what type of toothpaste she uses.

The fact that he wants to know all of that is what tips him off that he should not talk to her anymore. At least not right now. She’s still smiling at him. He wants to keep it that way, and if he keeps talking he’s not sure that Rose’s smile is something that’s going to stay on her face. “I’m just. I’m gonna go write now. I have to finish this chapter before dinner.”

Or he has to make an effort to finish the chapter before dinner. That’s not something that he can do if he’s staring at the way Rose’s full lips curl back to show her teeth, and the way he cheeks show that she has a light sunburn.

She nods at him and watches him walk to the table, moving to clean the counters after he sits down. He gets a few paragraphs written before he sneaks a glance at Rose. She’s talking with Amy near the counter, sweeping the floor while Amy cleans the outside of the pastry case. 

They’re smiling and laughing, and he thinks that if he tried hard enough he would be able to hear what they are saying. As it is he can only see Rose’s mouth move and the way that she curls her body towards the broom as she sweeps, steps closer to dancing than just walking around.

He watches her move and thinks about adding dancing to his book. It’s different to read a dance scene than it is to watch one. When you’re watching one, you get lost in the way that the dancer’s body moves as it follows the steps. When reading one, you only find yourself swaying in your seat, possibly even standing, to try and mimic what you’re reading. Or at least, he does.

A customer walks into the shop and the door chimes, startling him away from looking at Rose. Shaking his head at himself, the Doctor cracks his knuckles and takes a drink before he starts typing. That could have been an awful situation had someone seen him staring, assuming that they hadn’t. He blames it on the fact that he’s worrying about dinner tonight, and makes sure that he doesn’t stare at her again. He even waits until he’s sure that Amy is the one at the register, before he goes to get another snack.

He thinks he feels eyes on him as he walks back to his seat, but he ignores it. It’s only wishful thinking, or the fact that Amy was noticeably checking him out.

-

Dinner is terrible.

Rassilon is happy with his progress on the new novel, even though he wishes that the Doctor had been able to stick with the old one. He didn’t even seem upset that the Doctor’s trainers were the old and ratty ones instead of the new pair that Rassilon bought him for Christmas. Things seem to be going fine until the Master decides that he was feeling left out. After that everything spirals out of control and the Doctor thinks that if he had an archenemy, that archenemy is the Master.

The Doctor gets his water spilled into his lap, and then in shock he accidentally kicks Rassilon who was cutting his food and ended up slicing his finger. After wrapping his finger in one of the restaurant’s napkins and exclaiming loudly at everyone that he was fine, and he just wanted to eat his dinner, things seemed to be going better until the Master decided that he was going to be the only person who got to talk. 

The rest of dinner was agony, and the Doctor was incredibly glad when they finished dessert and could leave. He spent the night tossing and turning and finally giving up trying to sleep somewhere around one. 

He watched bad tv and stared at his laptop screen until he dozed off, hoping with ever fiber of his being that when he wakes up he will be able to write instead of just staring angrily at the tiny blinking cursor on his screen.

-

He spends the next week hiding in his flat with his phone turned off and the TV on low, leaving only once to stock up on food and coffee grounds for the week. He types as quietly as possible and shifts between sleeping and typing with little distinction, and he hopes that if Rassilon decides to show up at his flat, he will assume that the Doctor isn’t home. He is not in the mood to do any talking when the Master hasn’t cleaned up his mess yet.

When he turns on his phone, he has written another two chapters and he’s feeling pretty good about himself. There are a few messages from Rassilon and while he sounds angry, which is nothing out of the ordinary, he doesn’t seem to get angry with the Doctor until about the end of the week, when it seems that he has dropped off the face of the Earth.

It’s a quick call to tell him that he’s fine, and that he spent the week doing little more than sleeping and writing. (There’s a face that Rassilon makes when he likes something and the Doctor can see him making the face as they talk, which makes the Doctor more eager than normal to end the call.)

The only other message that he has is from Sarah Jane, who is calling to check up on him and invite him to dinner. He writes himself a note to call her after he takes a shower. He doesn’t even want to talk to her when he smells as bad as he knows he does as though she will which, knowing Sarah Jane, she might. After showering he cleans the flat, and throws open the windows to let some air circulate before calling Sarah Jane back.

She says she’s having a dinner party, and she wants him to come, that it’s going to be the girls from work, Amy’s boyfriend Rory, Jack, another regular from the shop, and him, if he says yes.

“I’ll come, but what is this dinner for anyway?”

 

“Hang on.” There’s a couple of loud thuds, and the bang of something being put into a shopping cart. “I just want to give everyone a chance to meet Luke for the first time. I mean, most of the girls have seen him in the shop once or twice, and Rory, that’s Amy’s boyfriend, has taken him for ice cream when something has taken longer than I expected but I wanted to wait until you got back so that I could have everyone meet him at once.”

The Doctor feels like he’s being filled with warmth. It may just be that she wanted to save herself the trouble of having to have people over twice, but it makes him feel cared for nonetheless. “Alright then. I’ll be there with bells on.”

She gives him the details and tells him that she’s glad that he is free, and the girls will all be so glad that it’s a go. Apparently when she found out he was back, she and the girls found a time that was good for all of them, only he wasn’t answering his phone so she was worried that he was going to have something planned, or had had to leave again and that they were going to have to reschedule.

As he’s to saying goodbye, Sarah Jane interrupts him to say her own goodbye, adding “And Doctor, please don’t wear any actual bells.” Before hanging up the phone before he can respond.

-

When the day comes and the Doctor shows up, he’s not wearing bells but it’s a close call. He lays a few tiny Christmas jingle bells on his coffee table, in the hopes that he will eventually remember to lace them onto his shoes, but in between running and running errands and writing and drinking coffee he never gets to it.

He calls a few times in the week leading up to dinner to ask if there’s anything that he needs to bring, and Sarah Jane doesn’t believe him when he says that he is a perfectly good cook, that he had to survive for the years before he found the TARDIS and the myriad of restaurants close by. She laughs at him and says that she’s got it covered, and he promises to bring something. Between one call and the next he decides on cheesecake.

He spends two days baking 5 different cheesecakes trying to decide on which is best, he writes while he waits, and then he snacks and decides that it isn’t good enough, before he looks up another recipe and going shopping again. He’s pretty sure the cashier that hung him up on the three trips he made while she was working thinks he’s gone mad.

In the end he takes what is left of all of the desserts and brings them all with him. Hopefully there will be something for everyone, and by the look on Sarah’s face when he arrives he can tell that she expected a store bought cake, not a tray of delicious and already cut into cheesecake.

She gives him a look, and he shrugs. “I needed to make sure that they tasted good, didn’t I?”

She shakes her head, and he follows her into the kitchen. Donna is in there, chattering on to a little boy that must be Luke about how you have to stir pasta when it cooks so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

The Doctor doesn’t know why it hadn’t crossed his mind until right this second how wonderful a mother Donna would be. She definitely mothered him in the way that she tried to get him to order decaf when he was slightly shaky with caffeine intake, or the way that even though they weren’t supposed to make trips for him, when she would come back from her lunch break sometimes she had food for him.

She definitely mothers the girls in the shop, standing up for them when a customer says or does something inappropriate, and then scolding them ten minutes later for doing something they know they shouldn’t be. And yet it wasn’t until he stood in Sarah Jane’s kitchen and watched her giving Luke cooking tips that sometimes have nothing to do with the stirring job that he’s been assigned.

Sarah Jane seems to be mainly looking everything over to make sure that it’s doing what it should.

The Doctor feels out of place just standing there holding his tray of cheesecake. It looks around the kitchen for a place to put it, and sits it out of the way and nowhere near any of the rest of the food. He realizes then that he feels just as out of place as he did before only his arms are happier with him now. He jingles his keys in his pocket and leans against the wall.

The doorbell rings, and Sarah Jane snaps to attention rushing to answer it. She stops before she’s entirely out of the room and says, “Doctor. That’s Luke. Luke, this is the Doctor. Get yourselves acquainted.”

The Doctor walks across the room and holds out his hand. Luke lays his spoon on the counter and does the same. 

“Nice to meet you.” They let go and Luke picks up the spoon using it to tap on the edge of the counter. “Sarah Jane hasn’t told me much about you, but she’s told me enough. I was very excited to finally get to meet you. Sorry I didn’t help with painting your room.”

“It’s nice to meet you too. And it’s fine. Mum said you were away, and that we could handle it. Ruined a good pair of pants but we had a good time.” He stops tapping as Donna sends him a stern look. It’s not a mean look but it’s the same look the Doctor gets when he taps his pen against the edge of the table when the TARDIS is especially quiet.

There’s a bellow from the front door, and Luke goes running towards his mother, saying that he’s sorry as he’s already passing out of the kitchen. The Doctor wonders for a moment what Luke has done that makes him run out of the kitchen already guilty, before there’s another loud noise. This time it comes from somewhere closer, and from someone considerably more ginger.

“Spaceman! Where’s my hello?” She’s smashing potatoes in a bowl, milk and butter and salt coming together with the vegetables to make one of the Doctor’s favorite foods. He moves toward her and she lets go of the masher, leaving it sitting in the bowl, so that she can wrap her arms around his neck. “I’m glad you’re here first. I think Sarah Jane was afraid that you were going to forget or be late. That wouldn’t have ended well.”

The Doctor thinks about the four alarm clocks that are sitting on the table in the living room, and the alarms that were set on both his phone and computer. He wasn’t going to miss this because he fell asleep, or got distracted with writing or was in the kitchen trying not to eat another piece of cheesecake that he forgot to leave. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

Donna lets him go at that, and pulls back to check that he’s not lying. She nods and says “good,” before going back to mashing her potatoes. There’s the sound of the door again, and then Sarah Jane is coming to get the Doctor from the kitchen.

He hesitates using the fact that Donna is still in the kitchen as a reason why. He isn’t going to let it be known that he’s worried that he’s going to embarrass himself in front of everyone.

There are the normal worries; that he’s going to drop his food in his lap or spill his drink on someone else. But then there are the ones that he feels only apply to him as he is at this moment; the worry that he’s going to look to long at Rose and she’ll think he’s a creep, or that he won’t look at her enough and end up being so rude that he pushes her into the arms of Captain Jack Harkness (though no one is sure that he was ever the captain of anything), the TARDIS’ resident flirt.

Donna literally pushes him out of the kitchen and forces him to go and interact with people that he isn’t as close to yet. In the last week, he’s had multiple conversations with everyone who is supposed to be here tonight. He has the small talk details and that should be enough even though he feels like it isn’t. Of course, if he had run deep and intricate background checks on all of them he still wouldn’t feel prepared enough.

He knows that Martha is in school to be a doctor, a real doctor. Amy is a kiss-o-gram on the weekends and that Rory is thinking of going into nursing school. Jack is Jack, and Rose doesn’t know what she’s going to do in her life. That her father died when she was young, that Rory lost his mother around the same time and that the two of them have bonded over shared experience. Amy’s parents are both alive and still married to each other, while Martha’s parents are alive and divorced. She’s the only one with siblings and it shows in the way that she handles being around her co-workers when they get in their little fights.

The Doctor has a handful more facts like these, and his charm has gotten him this far in his life. It’s a few more steps until he’s in the living room and surrounded with people that he can see becoming his friends. He can see them joining the ranks of Donna and Sarah Jane in getting close to him, and it scares him more than almost anything else.

If he lets these people become his friends then he will lose them one day. He lost his family, and he lost the Master (for all that they had once been friends) and he doesn’t know if he wants to add more people to his list of damages caused by himself. 

But then Sarah Jane is smiling, and they’re all grinning and excited to see him and he feels warm and happy and new and he’s still scared to death inside. He grins back at them anyway, gives them a tiny piece of himself, thinking that by the time they’re done there’s not going to be anything left of him for himself.

It doesn’t take long for Donna to finish with the potatoes, and come out to see everyone too. She greets everyone with a hug, and looks the kind of right at home that the Doctor finds himself constantly faking. Luke almost falls as he runs down the stairs, but when he joins them all the head into the dining room, Sarah Jane introducing people as the walk through.

There’s a bit of trouble as they try to decide who sits where, but they get it settled eventually and the Doctor finds himself sitting between Rose and Rory, with Amy next to him. Jack, Donna, and Martha are sitting across the table from them. Sarah Jane is at the head of the table since it’s her house and Luke sitting opposite her to give everyone a little bit more room. Even though the table is large it feels moderately crowded.

There are a few minutes of dishes getting passed around as everyone gets some food on their plate, and then things are quiet as they start eating.

”Sarah Jane, this is really good!” The Doctor is speaking around a mouthful of food, and he’s sure that the giggles that he receives from the blonde on his left are a sign that he looks odd.

Rose is nodding though, agreeing and then there’s a round of everyone complimenting Sarah and her saying that it was nothing and that Donna deserves some of the credit and that it was her pleasure. She’s blushing and keeps trying desperately to change the subject. She asks about Donna’s grandfather, and if Mickey Smith, Rose’s boyfriend, has been able to schedule the tune-up for her car. The Doctor tries not to scowl and helps to change the subject, by complimenting the vegetables on his plate.

It isn’t until she asks about what the Doctor is writing that anyone else seems to be on the same topic as her, breaking back into one conversation from the many that they had fallen into. 

“Well-“

“Out with it, Spaceman.” Said Donna, moving a forkful of food to her mouth. “Don’t act like we wouldn’t find out anyway, when you leave us to watch your stuff.”

“It’s about a man who has forgotten who he is, in a time that isn’t his own. There is a woman that loves him, and she remembers who he was before, and is from his time and she has to take care of him.” The Doctor has never felt good at summarizing his work, and now is no different. He wants to go on about the details of the story, and let them tell him their opinions. That is one of the first the first rules of writing though. Don’t tell them too much or you’ll spoil the story for them and they’ll be bored when they read it.

“That sounds interesting.” Says Rory, and Amy agrees. “We’ll have to read it when you finish. Not that we were planning not to, but you know how it is.” 

When the Doctor leans forward to look around Rory at her, there’s an odd little smile on her face. It feels like she is planning something or that she is getting away with something. After half of a second of thinking about, the Doctor decides that it isn’t worth it, because behind him Rose is speaking. 

“From what I’ve read it’s really good.” Her face is as pink as her jacket, and he thinks it’s adorable if distracting from what she is saying.

”What?”

“Well, Amy and I have been sneaking over and reading things, just tiny parts really. I didn’t think it would be too bad, since Donna and Sarah Jane admitted to doing the same thing before.” She will look at him and then look away, ashamed at what she’s done. “I think it was supposed to be a secret though.” With a look around the table, she says “Sorry,” before focusing intently on her plate.

With a glance around the table, he can see that everyone looks a bit shy, except for Jack, who seems excited at this turn of events. “It doesn’t bother me. If it did, I could always lock the computer and make sure that you couldn’t get to it.” It seems that this shocks everyone a bit, because they got from eating and looking sheepish, to eating and staring at him like he’s mad. “Really. It’s fine. Could you pass the potatoes?”

Martha grabs the bowl and passes it to Rose, who hands it to the Doctor. The grin on Rose’s face makes him think that even if he had been lying he still would have said that it was fine. It’s big and open. There is light in her eyes, and she’s shining like a star right in front of him. 

He says thank you, and grins back, looking away to get more potatoes.

“I want those next.” Rory says, taking the bowl when he’s done and then it seems that everyone is taking another serving of something, filling whatever empty spots have appeared on his or her plate. 

The rest of dinner passes much the same. There is a lot of elbow bumping, and once Jack drops corn onto Donna so she pushes him into the floor. They laugh and the Doctor finds himself grinning at Rose, grinning at all of them, a lot. He feels light and happy and like there’s nothing in his past that can stop him. Martha and Rory spend a good portion of the time discussing the differences in becoming a doctor and becoming a nurse. 

By the time the table is cleared and the cheesecakes brought in everyone is more than a little stuffed.

“The Doctor made these, so if you don’t like them blame him.” Said Sarah Jane, a teasing smile on her face as she places the dessert on the table.

There are a few strange looks at the partially eaten state of them all, but after multiple reassurances that he cut didn’t eat directly from them or something equally gross everyone decides to try some. The response is immediate and positive. He feels his face flush, but he ignores it to look down at his plate and eat his slice of cheesecake.

There’s movement beside him and then the impossibly heavy weight of a hand on his shoulder. “It’s really good, y’know. There’s no need to be embarrassed.”

He turns to look at her, and the smile that she’s giving him is smaller, quieter. It feels like it’s all his, at least at this moment anyway. He returns it with a small thank you. It’s easier to return to the group’s conversations after that, but when Rose moves her hand off of his shoulder he can still feel it. It is almost as though he is missing a piece of himself.

They all part ways soon after that, Donna and Amy have to open the store in the morning, the Doctor has things to write and Sarah Jane is visibly exhausted even though Luke seems wide awake. There are hugs exchanged, and Donna says that she’ll see him in the morning, and he has no doubt that she will. He still has a lot to write to make up for all of the time that he spent away.

-

Instead of writing, he goes to sleep. He lies in his bed and he sleeps like he hasn’t slept in days. He doesn’t remember the last time that he slept in bed, having recently taking to sleeping on the couch while he was writing in between baking and being in the TARDIS.

When he gets up it’s almost morning and the sun is turning the sky outside of his bedroom window the gray-white of the early morning. He stands there and watches a pink sun sneak out from behind the other buildings, trying to remember what he dreamt about the night before.

He has a vague feeling of weight pressing down on his shoulders and being the kind of warm that you feel after leaving a cold room and walking into the sunlight. There’s the feeling of happiness, and a memory of arms around him. It feels like he’s in a group hug, until all of a sudden they were moving around his neck, and he couldn’t breathe.

He had woken up gasping. He hadn’t moved from bed though, choosing to curl up on his side to get his breath back. It hadn’t been a bad dream, what he can remember of it feels warm and happy and comforting. Even when he had been losing his breath he had not felt panicked. That is what worries him the most.

When the clock next to his bed reads eight o’clock, he puts it out of his head and goes to take a shower. He can’t spend all day wondering why he had that crazy dream last night. 

It isn’t long until he’s jogging towards the TARDIS, whistling a happy song and being generally merry. There’s no use being confused or sad, when you can be, or at least pretend to be, happy.

He pulls open the door, and it greeted with refreshing cool air. Things are starting to slow down as more people head to work, and instead of going straight to his table, he gets in line for coffee and also a few muffins. He has leftovers from last night but none of them are really breakfast foods.

He gets his muffin and chats with Donna for a moment while Martha makes his coffee. As soon as the cup is in his hand to his table before the woman in line behind him claws his throat out because he’s standing between her and the person who is going to give her caffeine.

When he turns though the table is not empty, like he expected it to be. There’s a person sitting there, and he thinks about going and asking them to move for a moment before he thinks about sitting at a different table even though that wouldn’t feel right.

When he walks by the table he recognizes the face, and smiles.

“Rory!”

The younger man jumps at the sudden disturbance, before looking up to smile. “Doctor! Donna said that this was your regular table and that you wouldn’t mind if I sat here with you. Well, actually she forced me to sit here so that when you got here, we wouldn’t be taking up to two tables. I can move if you want me to.” He moves so that he can gather all of things and move if the Doctor tells him to.

After a glance over his shoulder to see Donna glaring at him, he shakes his head, says, “No, it’s fine, stay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” He sits his bag on the floor, and pulls out his laptop. Laying scratch paper on the table next to him, and making sure not to accidentally knock his coffee over. “I don’t mind.”

Rory nods his head, and gets back to work. “I shouldn’t be too much of a bother. I’m meeting my cousin and Amy here so that we can go to lunch before Amy has to go to work.”

The Doctor nods back and they settle into their work. Donna comes by and tells them to sit up straight a few times, and she steals the Doctor’s dirty napkins, pretending not to read his computer screen over his shoulder.

They talk occasionally but Rory has an exam that he has to study for and the Doctor focuses intently when he’s writing, so they mainly just work on their own things and talk to Donna when she stops by. (They are fine with being ignored, they understand that they have things to do, but Donna knows that them being distracted for a few minutes to talk to her isn’t going to hurt anything.)

The Doctor doesn’t notice when Amy shows up. One minute it’s just him and Rory sitting there reading and snacking on their respective muffins, because the Doctor had needed another and had bought Rory one too, and then Rory has a lap full of Scottish ginger, and has to crane his head to see beyond where she’s snuggling her face into his neck.

“Hello, Amy! You look tired.” He says.

“Hello, Doctor!” She peeks moves her head enough that she can send a scowl his way. “I look tired, because I am tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I had some reading that I had to get to.” She’s taking a couple of classes, and it seems she keeps forgetting about the homework.

Rory mumbles something that sounds strangely like “you should have listened to me”, and Amy kicks at him. He yells out in pain and she smiles, tucking her face back into his shoulder. They have a strange relationship, but they are happy and the Doctor can’t say anything against that.

He gets to write for a little while before there’s a loud noise from the front door. There’s a commotion from the other side of the table, and he looks up from his writing. Rory is trying to stand up, and Amy is apparently asleep in his lap. He finally manages to gather her into his arms and, with strength the Doctor never imagined him to have, he stands up.

“Hi, River.” He’s still managing to hold Amy, and she still seems to be asleep. It makes the Doctor wonder how many times he’s had to move Amy away from where she’s slumped over her books and carry her off to bed. He’s getting a small peek into the domestics of other people and though he’s not sure about if what he’s imagining is true it feels like something he shouldn’t know.

“Hello, Rory.” There’s something in River, who he is guessing is Rory’s cousin. She’s got a lot of blonde curly hair, and she looks like the type of person who you wouldn’t strictly want to meet in a dark alley. “I can see Amy hasn’t changed.”

Rory is working on trying to get Amy to wake up and stand on her own feet. He’s whispering in her ear, and the Doctor thinks that if he were a photographer instead of a writer, these would be the kind of pictures that he would want to take. He could write them into a story though. There’s a difference in reading about a person clinging like they’re going to drown and seeing it. With a quick tug on his ear the Doctor moves on, drinking the last sips of his coffee.

He stares at the menu, trying to decide on what to order next. He’s leaning towards a cold drink, an iced coffee or a smoothie maybe. It isn’t until curly blonde steps in front of him that he realizes that he must have spaced out again. A quick glance behind the counter shows Donna, laughing at him and trying to pass it off as coughing.

“I’m River. River Song.” She’s got a hand out, and she is acting as though she already knows the Doctor. 

He shakes her hand with a simple, “I’m the Doctor.”

Her response sets him a little on edge. “Oh I know all about you.”

Rory pushes into the conversation at that. “She just means that she’s a fan. She’s read all of your books or something. River hasn’t been staking you.” He mumbles something that sounds oddly like ‘or at least I hope so’ before walking back over to the counter where Donna has a drink waiting for him.

“He’s right. I love the way that you work with words. I am constantly in awe.” She doesn’t look particularly in awe. She looks like he wants to take him out back and have her way with him. It worries him even more.

“I’m sure that you could do the same.” He likes to say that everyone has a writer in them. They just have to find something that they can write about, whether it’s nonfiction about butterflies or a novel about an alien invasion. He mainly just wants to get back to deciding on a drink and writing.

“Oh, no. I’m an archeologist. Love a tomb.” 

He’s saved from having to react more, by Rory walking over. Amy’s holding onto his arm and stumbling sleepily alongside him. “Okay, we have to get going. Doctor, this is for you.” He sits the cup onto the table, and slides it closer to the Doctor. “As thanks for sharing the table, and getting me a muffin and…” He sends a pointed look at River who doesn’t seem to notice. He mouths sorry, before pulling at River’s arm, saying, “We really have to go. Come on.”

He shakes his head and rolls his shoulders, rubs at his neck and stretches his arms. He had been sitting still for too long and now his body is angry with him. It’s not very busy in the shop, and he thinks about getting up to stretch his legs. Donna seems to be reading his mind, because she’s exasperatedly shaking her head, but he thinks that she would be fine with it if he did. Or maybe she’s shaking her head at something else, he doesn’t know.

The coffee is just the way he likes it and he’s thankful that Donna knows the dos and don’ts of his coffee. Rory is nice, and he pays attention but the two of them haven’t been around each other enough to know how they take their drinks.

He waits a moment to take a few deep breaths, before jumping back into writing. He’ll go grab a sandwich from across the street in a little while and he will bring one back for Donna because it’s his turn, and he will finish this chapter and call Rassilon and give him an update on how things are going and his life will be just the same as it is on any other given day.

-

He's on his third cup of coffee for the day when Rose asks him about it. "How d'you afford this? I mean, from what I've heard writers usually aren't paid the big bucks. I could be really really wrong, but I don't know." 

He's trying to think of a way to answer when she tacks on, "You don't have to answer. It's none of my business." She's blushing, but still looking at him. He thinks it's adorable. 

"It's no problem. I make good money writing, but my family is wealthy and I have investments that are doing pretty good." He leaves out the time that he spent working with UNIT, since he doesn't like to think about it, and the life and home insurance policies his lawyer is dealing with. "All of that keeps me drinking tons of coffee and eating a lot of muffins. Speaking of, could I have one of those?"

He points at what he wants and she grabs it from the case, ringing it up as Martha brings over his coffee. He takes them both, giving a thank you before heading back to his laptop. Jack is sitting with him today, in between trips to the counter to flirt with Rose and Martha, and reading a file that he says is classified. The Doctor wants to ask about it, but he doesn't want to deal with the cheesy cliche that he's going to get in response. 

He is thankful that Jack is outside right now, talking on the phone and gesturing to Rose where she stands sweeping the floor. She's laughing and it makes the Doctor glare out the window. He would like to say that he is not a jealous man but he can't.

He has no reason to be jealous though. Rose hasn't shown any interest in him and as far ad he knows she has a boyfriend and there is no way for him to bring it up without making things awkward. The Doctor takes an angry bite from his muffin and gets back to work.

Jack comes in not long after that to say that he has to go to into work, but he asks for the rest of the Doctor’s muffin. He pushes it across the table, while still typing with one hand and Jack promises to buy him another one sometime. 

It’s quiet for most of the afternoon, with Rose dancing around the shop and Martha scowling but eventually joining in. Sarah Jane stops by and smiles, reminds them that they need to restock the shelves, and mop the break room floor. There’s a steady flow of people in and out, and the Doctor gets a good chunk of work done.

Things liven up, at least for the Doctor, when the infamous Mickey Smith walks in the door. He doesn’t know that he’s Mickey Smith until Rose introduces them. 

“Mickey, this is the Doctor, and Doctor, this is Mickey Smith. My ex-boyfriend.” He’s got his arm around her waist and the Doctor had watched them hug and her kiss him on the cheek when he had arrived. His face must show his confusion, because she mentions it again. “We’re still close friends. We had known that the break-up was going to happen for ages.”

“How long have you…?” He trails off, not sure how he is going to finish the question.

She understands. “Just a couple of weeks. It happened right after the dinner where we all met Luke.”

The Doctor remembers her hand on his shoulder, and her in his personal space because of them being crowded at a table. He doesn’t remember that that much time had past, but that explains why he’s getting closer and closer to being finished with his first draft. His life isn’t much more than the TARDIS and his apartment, and he’s had longer swatches of time pass with him not noticing. 

Checking his computer’s calendar he notices that it’s closer to being the beginning of July than the beginning of June. He notices that there isn’t long until his birthday, and it makes him glad that no one here knows about it.

“I-I-I’m sorry. If I had known I would have said something. Given my condolences.” The Doctor reaches up to tug on his ear and he sees that Rose’s eyes track the movement for a moment before looking back to his eyes. 

“It’s fine. He was dropping by to tell me that they got the part for Sarah Jane’s car.” She’s smiling, and the Doctor hopes it’s for Sarah Jane or himself but not Mickey. In the last few weeks the Doctor has been growing closer to Rose, and while they haven’t been overly flirting, Rose laughs when he’s funny and he will catch himself staring at her sometimes, or she’ll look at him and smile. It’s not enough for him to say that she likes him, but at the same time it doesn’t that she doesn’t like him either.

Mickey nods. “Tell her that if she brings it in in the morning I’ll have it done before four o’clock at the latest.”

“I will call her in just a moment.” Rose is the one nodding.

“Okay. I’ve got to go. I’ve got a date tonight.” With a press of his lips to Rose’s cheek, Mickey is out the door.

The Doctor has to work to move his face from the scowl he can feel there, as he says, “He seemed nice.” The Doctor doesn’t like him, but the Doctor isn’t sure that he could like anyone who hurt Rose. He’s sure that it was as amicable as Rose said, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt.

“He’s a good guy, a good friend. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go call Sarah Jane.” She throws a smile at him as she walks behind the counter and another one, after hanging up with Sarah Jane as she begins to make someone’s espresso.

And if the Doctor had checked her out as she walked. Well, that’s not something that he’s going to talk about. 

-

After that there are a few long days where Donna says that she will throw him out any time when he tries to get coffee. She gives him decaf and tea and anything other than the fancy lattes that he’s craving, and says that he needs to sleep, really sleep.

He could argue that he has been sleeping perfectly fine, thank you, and it’s none of her business, but he get a glance at himself in the mirror and can’t seem to make himself argue a lie today. Instead he goes running. He runs and runs until his lungs are going to burst and his legs are going to stop working.

It’s been a while since he’s ran this much. The quarter of a mile that he gets in sometimes is nothing compared to the feeling that he is just running away. He’s running from the jealousy that he feels creep up every time that a customer gets a smile from Rose, the anger at Donna for thinking she knows what he needs better than he does, the ever present ache of sadness from being disowned by a family that he had never really felt close to. 

He runs until there’s nothing left for him to think about and he’s lost in a city he’s lived in for ages. Then he buys himself a water from a nearby store and then sets out on a walk back to the flat where his life is waiting for him, where a laptop is still sitting open on the coffee table in the living room waiting for him to decide that he has something in his mind worth writing down.

The Doctor knows that when he gets back his legs are going to be sore, his back is going to ache and he’s going to be borderline dehydrated and way past hungry, but he’s pretty sure that the peace of mind that he is feeling right now is worth it.

He’s wrong.

When he finally makes it back into the flat it’s dark outside. There’s nothing to eat in his cabinets, and the only thing in his fridge is a bottle of tomato juice. After that he drinks some of the tomato juice and then makes his way back out of the building to get food. 

It’s slow going and his body is screaming at him, that he had been so close to being able to rest and heal, but he can’t stop. He doesn’t like the feeling of pain, but he enjoys knowing that the feeling comes from the fact that he was out and doing things instead of just sitting at home, not that he doesn’t enjoy that too.

He passes Martha leaving the TARDIS as he walks to the Chinese place with the good lo mein down the street. She smiles and walks with him until he gets there, before she has to head on home to clean before she meets her mother for dinner.

He has a twenty minute wait until his food is done, and he thinks about walking back to the to TARDIS so that he can talk Donna into giving him enough caffeine that he will be able to make it back home. She won’t of course, but he could try. That’s another five-minute walk back up the street, for him to just have to walk back to the Chinese restaurant, to walk back past the TARDIS. It’s a lot of back and forth walking to put his angry legs through, so instead he sits in one of the chairs where people wait for a table or their food, and does just that.

He must nod off because he jerks awake, standing and then cursing at the shock of pain that flares through his legs. There’s a person standing relatively close by holding the paper bag that is undoubtedly filled with his food so he steps over to her.

She hands him the bag with a simple, “This is yours.”

And he takes it with an even more simple “thank you.” Before walking out of the building.

The air is still clinging to the heat of the sun, and it feels lovely. He stops at a grocery, and picks up a twelve pack of soda and a large bottle of water. After that it’s a short walk home to his flat and his bed and food and sleep.

When he gets there though he’s shocked to see that the hallway is not empty like he had been expecting. There’s a person sitting curled up outside his door and when he gets closer, he is surprised to find that it’s Rose. 

He knows that it’s her, knows the top of that blonde head, sees it when she looks down to count out change, when she bends over to get food from the case, when she squats down to clean up a broken mug, but he has to ask for sure. “Rose?”

She removes her head from where her face was laying on her knees and smiles up at him. “Doctor! When you didn’t answer the door, I got worried. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” He says shifting things in his arms, as he tries to get to his keys so that he can open the door. He needs to install something that can open the door when he, and only he, snaps his fingers. For now though he has to attempt to juggle everything so that there’s not a hallway floor full of his dinner and tomorrow’s lunch and also possibly tomorrow’s dinner.

Rose is standing now and takes the bag of food, and bottle of water from him. He never remembers how nice it is to have friends until they’re right there reminding him. 

He gets the key in the lock, and turns it, opens the door. “What are you doing here? It’s not that I mind, it’s just not normal.” He very much doesn’t mind. He wants to keep her there in the cool air of his home forever, letting her be a splash of color in an otherwise neutral looking home.

As they walk in, he keeps sending glances at her. She’s all smooth lines and graceful curves while everything around her is made of hard edges and sharp corners picked out when he was bored and tired and just wanted to get home.

“When Martha got home, she called Donna at the shop to say that you were acting odd, limping and being quiet. So Donna wanted to come check on you, but she was working. I was just stopping in to pick up my paycheck and get mum’s coffee because she forgot it when she went out today and she had a date so she couldn’t get it tonight, but I told her that I would check on you. So that’s what I’m doing.” She isn’t paying attention to her words, more focused on everything around her as she follows him to the kitchen.

“Well, I’m fine. I went for a run earlier, and just went a little too far. Got sore and dehydrated and hungry. Hence the going for food.” He’s putting the sodas in the fridge, grabbing the water from Rose as she puts the food on the island. “I’m sorry if you were waiting for long.”

“I wasn’t.” She’s studying the art on the wall now. It’s an ugly thing that was a gift from someone who he doesn’t remember but he had needed something for the wall so up it went. “I was out there maybe five minutes before you showed up. Not even enough time to need to sit down, I just got bored.” Her eyes have moved on from the ugly painting to land on him now. “You have a lovely home.”

“I like it at least. The windows are my favorite part.” The kitchen is large and open, with windows over the sink. On the opposite side of the room is another large window letting in light that shines onto the kitchen table. There are a series of windows on the external walls of his bedroom. He loves having and apartment on a corner. He thinks that when he buys a house to stay in, the windows will be a deciding factor. “Do you want something to eat? I stocked up in case my legs don’t want to go anywhere tomorrow.”

“If I stay, won’t I be ruining that plan?” Rose looks unsure, but she’s smiling a small warm thing, like staying for dinner and ruining his plans for days of leftovers is enough to fill her with joy.

“I can always order in a pizza.” He almost groans at the thought of that, because then he wouldn’t have had to venture back out. They even could have brought him a drink. He would kick himself if his going out hadn’t been the reason that Rose is at his home. It’s not for optimal reasons but it’s not as bad as it could be. She offered to check on him so she must care, at least a little.

“If you’re sure.” He nods. “Okay then. I’d love to.” He’s grinning and then she’s grinning back at him, and he has to move to get plates so that he doesn’t do something like lean over and kiss her. 

They end up camping out in the living room, talking and laughing while the tv plays quietly in the background. He learns that she used to have a cat and he tells her that he loves the color yellow. They talk about what feels like everything, where they grew up, what their parents are like. He tells her about his one time fiancé and she tells him about the guy that she fell in love with right out of school.

She tells stories about the crazy things that her mother does, and he listens to her laugh about the Master’s insane plans. Rassilon’s hilarious threats don’t go over as well, so he has to explain that it’s good, that it keeps him writing and that the two of them are close for all of their antagonism. They share until Rose is yawning and the Doctor is almost asleep, both having finished their food ages ago.

“I should go. Wouldn’t want mum to worry if she came home to find me not there.” Rose stands and stretches, her shirt riding up to show off a band of skin above the waist of her shorts. It’s right in front of his eyes as he sits so the Doctor rushes his aching muscles to stand up.

He’s grabbing for his keys off of the table to follow her to the door, slipping into his shoes. “Let me drive you. It’s not safe out there at,” he glances to the clock on the wall, “half past two in the morning.”

She says, “It’s not really safe anywhere at half past two in the morning, “ but she lets him drive her home anyway. 

The drive there doesn’t seem to take that long, and she leans over to give him a kiss on the cheek before getting out of the car and running to the stairwell. She stops to throw a big smile at him before she enters it and heads up to the flat she shares with her mother. He’s seen her give Jack and Rory a ton of cheek kisses, but it doesn’t stop his heart from kicking into double time.

He takes the drive home slowly, because he doesn’t want the day to end. He feels warm all over, and when he does eventually get home he collapses onto his bed, rolls under the blankets and finally goes to sleep.

-

The next day he makes his way to the couch and then proceeds to watch movies all day. He gets up to answer the door when he eventually orders the pizza, but doesn’t move otherwise. He’s sore and his bones ache and he really shouldn’t have run as far as he did.

The week after that is difficult, but he manages. His legs throw a twinge of pain when he sits down or stands up, and he avoids squatting entirely, joints creaking and making him feel older than he is. When he’s at the TARDIS that week, he notices that Rose smiles at him a lot more, and he finds himself smiling back.

It’s hard to write when blonde hair and the pink of her lips are constantly distracting him. Rassilon calls him all of the time, yelling and screaming at him to finish the draft, that things can only get better if he finishes the draft because then he’ll be able to start seeing what needs to be changed.

He wants to give the book a happy ending, because people like happy endings, happy endings are the things that get your book recommended to other people. If a book doesn’t have a happy ending then it has to have a great or grand message. The Doctor doesn’t think that his novel is going to fit into either category, but at least it’s something that he’s enjoyed writing. He got to pour all of his anger and sadness into it and will hopefully be able to move on from those feelings.

Things seem to be going really well in his life, for the moment and he thinks that maybe he’s finally been able to outrun his past.

-

Rose gets a cookie when she takes her break. She tears it in half and slides part of it across the table to the Doctor. He takes a bite and savors the chocolate chips that are beginning to melt on his fingers. 

Her phone chimes and she slides it from her pocket, leaning forward to sit her cookie down on his napkin. She groans. He raises an eyebrow and finally looks at her. She types out a reply to the text message, before saying anything. “I need to get away from my mum. She’s being- She’s being pretty terrible. I need to find a flatshare.”

He thinks that he’s going to regret saying what he’s about to say. He thinks that it is a terrible idea and that it’s only going to end with him checking to make that he isn’t terribly burned with him own coffee, but he opens his mouth and says it anyway. “You could live with me.”

Her begins to look adorably confused and he rushes to explain.

“I just mean that I have a guest room that I don’t use for anything. I mean, I guess I could have turned it into an office, but,” He doesn’t want to say that he just didn’t want to, that he had always hoped to get another roommate after the when the Master moved out and transferred the lease over to the Doctor taking all of his furniture and setting himself up on the top floor of a building. “I wanted to make sure if anyone needed a place to say they wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch.”

There’s a smile on Rose’s face and a strange kind of hope in her eyes. It’s a hope that he recognizes from when he knew that he was going to be able to leave Gallifrey. It’s the look of a person who is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I don’t mind. You can ask Donna. It’s nice in there.” The one time that the two of them had gone to a bar, she had gotten fantastically wonderfully drunk. They had taken a cab back to his home, and he had tucked her into bed telling her softly that she is amazing and brilliant and she needs to realize that. “It’ll be nice to have someone else there. It gets kind of lonely sometimes.”

“If you’re sure?” He gives her a nod. “We can try it at least.” She picks up her cookie, begins eating the rest of it. “This isn’t going to make things awkward is it? The last time that I lived with someone who wasn’t my mum my life, sort of, spiraled out of control.” She’s sheepish looking and the Doctor doesn’t like it. “I wonder what mum will say.”

Rose is supposed to be confident and brave and not worried that he’s going to be offended. She’s supposed to smile and laugh and be the exact opposite of everything that’s radiating from her right now. 

“Rose, things will be fine. You are a good person and you are my friend and you deserve to be happy, and if I can help with that I will. I know what it’s like to want to get away from your parents, and at least you’re staying close enough that you can visit. Remind her of that.”

When he had left home, he had to gone straight to New York and lived in the tiniest apartment that he’d ever seen. It had been claustrophobic and perfect and there are times when he misses it and there are times when he is so glad that he decided on a place that was more expensive but bigger. It had been years before he was every ready to head back overseas again. Even then he settled in London.

She is finishing up her cookie now, sucking chocolate off of her fingers in a very distracting way. “I’m sure she’ll be upset at first, but eventually she’ll get used to it.” She’s taking a drink of her soda now, and you think that you must not have noticed it when she sat down. “At least I know you better than anyone else that I would end up sharing a flat with. You aren’t a total stranger, and I’m pretty sure you aren’t going to murder me in my sleep.”

She gives him a kind of inspecting look, and he only barely keeps from looking confused or offended. He has no real reason to be offended by this, because she doesn’t mean it. She’s probably trying to make a joke and will laugh in a moment and it shouldn’t bother him that she can jokingly think he’s capable of outright murdering her.

And then she does laugh, loud and open and throwing her head back to expose a lovely neck. She looks happy and light and it finally hits him that he’s in trouble. He has just invited the barista turned friend turned crush turned something that feels really close to love to live with him. He knows logically that he can’t love her yet, but that is what this feeling in his chest reminds him of.

As the Doctor looks at Rose he feels like he’s floating and she’s the only thing holding him down, like she’s the sun and he’s trying to grow towards her. He has only known her for a little more than a month and he hasn’t gone on a date with her yet, he shouldn’t be in- He shouldn’t be having these feelings, but he thinks that in another world where things were different he would have been in love with her after one day, after one thing happening to the both of them. 

That isn’t what happened though. He just walked into a place where he gets coffee and writes and makes friends with the people who work there and he started having emotions.

“Doctor, are you okay? I don’t really think you’re going to kill me when I sleep. I trust you.” She’s leaning forward; moving so that she can see all of his face, doesn’t want it hidden behind his laptop screen. “Doctor?”

”I’m fine.” He puts a grin back on his face, and it might be a bit crazed but he’s sure that she expects that of him by now. “I just got a bit distracted. If you want to come by on your next day off you can check the room out.”

She nods okay, tells him when she’s next off, and a moment later settles back in her chair. He spends the rest of her break typing while pretending that she isn’t spending the rest of her break staring at him. 

He heads home that evening and cleans up anything that he doesn’t want her to see. It’s not much use since she had looked at everything when she was here a week and a half ago, but he makes sure that there is no underwear on the bathroom floor and then he vacuums and sweeps and mops and changes the sheets on his bed. It’s not like she will see those, but he’s cleaning and might as well.

The garbage is taken out and windows are opened and he cleans the bathtub and she’s not actually moving in until the weekend, but he doesn’t want to have to rush to do all of the work at the last minute. Using a post-it he makes a note to call his landlord in the morning, before curling up on the clean smelling couch.

The Doctor has had good luck with the landlord in this building. He was fine with letting the Doctor take the last three months of the Master’s lease before signing his own saying that he would be there for at least a year, paying six months rent in advance, and now the Brigadier is fine with the Doctor’s getting a roommate so long as someone will still be paying the rent.

Former Brigadier Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart had been in the army at one point in the seventies and now just owns and attempts to take care of the two apartment buildings that his family had passed along to him. He daughter, Kate, works for UNIT and the Doctor had worked alongside her those few fateful times and the Brigadier has made plenty of joking comments about the two of them ending up married with children. He had followed these comments with pointed looks that said that the two of them were not supposed to end up married, and the Doctor and Kate were fine with that. They had only ever been just friends.

Not so much now, but time changes people. Life changes people.

They end the call with the Doctor’s promise to ring and invite the Brigadier to dinner as soon as Rose gets settled in.

The Doctor grabs his laptop off the table and settles in to write. He’s tired and going to the TARDIS would only result in Donna walking him home and tucking him into bed and making sure he gets some rest. He lounges on the couch and writes until he’s not sure if the half-awake thoughts that he is having are making it into the document. It’s easy to save the document, put the computer on the ground, close his eyes and drift back into sleep.

He dreams of light again, warm bright light that hold him like arms and makes it hard to breathe in that way that means summer. Then he can make out Rose’s smile, her eyes, her hair, the way that her perfume smells and she’s leaning. Leaning, leaning, leaning close and her mouth is on his, and her hands are in his hair and it’s what he’s been wanting without even knowing. She’s so close to him that he can’t breathe, that he’s choking and all that is there is her.

His heart pounds out a steady double time of RoseRose, RoseRose, RoseRose. The Doctor’s arms are wrapping around her back, holding her chest to his, keeping her close with a force that might bruise. Her hands are moving from his hair, lightly scratching down his neck. She moves forces her way back and her lips move toward his neck, mouth opening to let warm breath touch the soft skin of his neck and-

He wakes up, his breath coming fast like he really hadn’t been able to breathe, on the floor next to his couch. He’s sweating and it’s hot in his apartment. Turning up the air conditioner, he takes a shower before heading out to the TARDIS. There’s writing that he needs to get done and the best chance for him to do so is if he gets out of the house.

It’s not busy when he gets there, and Rose is working the register, humming and wiping at the keys. He tells her about the Brigadier being okay with her moving in on the condition that he meets her, which should be no problem because everyone seems to like her.

She grins and rushes around the counter throwing her arms around him. He wraps his arms around her waist and picks her up, swinging her a bit. When he puts her down and they let go of each other, she rings up his coffee, he pays, and Amy makes it for him, complaining that Rose isn’t letting her switch to register.

“I just spent twenty minutes cleaning whipped cream out off of it.”

“That wasn’t me!” Amy says, her tone of voice making her sound like a child on the verge of a temper tantrum.

The Doctor grabs a napkin and wraps it around his cup, wanting to hide the sticky white fingerprints on the side of it, not wanting to get into their argument or having to clean whipped cream off of his keyboard.

He turns to walk to his table when Rose says loudly, “Then what is all of that?” He is a couple of steps away from his table now and he chances walking into something or someone to glace over his shoulder.

Rose is pointing at the various coffee and tea making machines where there are a spattering of white dots. Amy looks shocked for a moment, before looking at her hands. They must be sticky because she tries rubbing them on her apron before walking to go wash her hands.

Rose calls out behind her, “You get to clean up everything!” and the Doctor settles in to work

-

Jackie comes to visit before she will let Rose start to move in. It’s the first time that the Doctor has actually met Jackie. Whenever she comes into the shop, he makes sure to be so focused on work that he doesn’t have to meet her. She’s a bit frightening, with a short temper and a big heart, and Donna says that it makes Jackie a hard person to get along with.

The Doctor thinks that Donna could fit into the same category of person, but he doesn’t mention that to her.

It seems to be going well at first. Jackie inspects the apartment, looking into cabinets and closets. It’s strange to explain that there are Ikea boxes in his hall closet because he bought shelving units in bulk, and hasn’t needed to use any of those yet. He hasn’t been into a bookstore since he got back from Ireland, and he makes a mental note to go shopping.

Jackie likes the room that will be Rose’s and seem to like it even more when the Doctor says that Rose can paint and decorate anyway she likes, that he’ll even take down the bed and move the furniture into storage if she wants to use the things that are already hers.

“Nah, I like this stuff. It’s very pretty. And I really like this bed. It’s bigger than the one I have now. And it’s soft.” She’s jumped into the middle and is sitting primly in the middle, bouncing a bit and smiling while Jackie inspects the windows.

A moment later Jackie pulls a tape measure out of her pocket, and measures the walls and the window, the bed, the closet, and then finally the Doctor. He wants to know why she needs to know how tall he is, but ultimately decides against asking.

They walk back into the living room, and there’s an excited energy to the way Rose is walking, the smile on her face small and blinding.

Jackie ruins it a moment later by beginning the interrogation part of the tour. “Are you in a sexual relationship with my daughter?”

Both the Doctor and Rose blurt out “No!”s at the same time but she doesn’t seem to believe them. They aren’t lying and he has to be glad that she didn’t ask if he wanted to be in a sexual relationship with Rose. He still would have said no, but he wouldn’t have been answering honestly.

Chancing a glance at Rose, he sees that she is turning incredibly pink.

It makes him wonder what he looks like.

Instead of letting that thought slip, or getting himself into more trouble, he asks, “Would you like a cup of coffee? Tea?” It’s the best that he can do to try and make the air in the room less tense. It doesn’t work. 

Jackie doesn’t seem to believe that he isn’t sleeping with Rose, because she brings her arm up and smacks him in the face. His hand follows hers, coming to rest on his stinging cheek. “What was that for?”

She gives him an angry look, and he shakes his head. “Never mind. Not important.”

The anger fades a bit and Jackie begins to walk to the door. Rose stays close to him like that alone will make Jackie let Rose into their flat to get her things. She’s pleading with her eyes for her mum to give her a, hopefully positive, answer.

“I’m not happy about it, but you can stay here Rose.” She’s stopped walking and is standing near the door, away from where they’re at in the middle of the room.

There’s sadness in her eyes behind all of the anger and why she slapped him comes up and smacks him in the face again. She doesn’t want to see her daughter grow up and leave her. She’s going to be alone in the flat that the two of them have shared for half of Jackie’s life. The Doctor can’t imagine loving someone so much, and knowing that someday they were going to leave home no matter what you did.

Rose is so busy giving her mother a hug that she doesn’t notice the shine of wetness there, and when they pool away a couple of minutes later, Jackie’s face is no longer showing the open and terrible pain that had been there. She’s hiding her grief for her daughter’s childhood from her daughter, and the Doctor thinks that it is incredibly brave.

They make arrangements for him to drive over on Friday and start moving some of Rose’s things because since he has a car everything is easier than it would be otherwise. The Doctor says that he’ll talk to the Brigadier about getting Rose a key and the three of them having dinner.

Rose gives him a hug, and the women leave with smiles on their faces, him settling down on the couch with his laptop. He has a deadline to meet, and like always, he needs to get to work.

-

It’s a surprise when, on Wednesday, rose shows up at his door.

He thinks that maybe she’s a figment of his imagination, but then she pushes past him and into the flat. She’s got her arms full, and she rushes to the room, which on Friday will officially be hers. 

”Can you grab those newspapers from the hall?”

He looks out into the hallway, and sees a couple of newspapers spread out across the hallway, like they had been dropped while someone was walking and they didn’t have time to stop and grab them. If the way Rose rushed in has anything to do with it then that seems to be exactly what happened. He goes to grab them and rubs the sleep from his eyes. 

He had a long night filled with coffee and listening to screaming over the phone, (because Rassilon is in New York for reasons that the Doctor doesn’t particularly care about and he doesn’t care about time zones) writing, and then falling asleep sometime after the sun had come up.

He picks up the scattered papers and brings them inside, sitting them on the counter as he makes a cup of coffee. He’s going to need caffeine is he is expected to help with whatever Rose had her arms full of.  
Thankful of the fact that he had left a cup of coffee in the coffeemaker that morning he starts another pot, and grabs the newspapers to his chest, grabs his reheated mug of coffee, and heads to Rose’s room.

She’s got tarps and a can of paint sitting on her bed, laying out a couple of paint rollers and brushes, counting what she has.

Rose mutters her thanks when she takes the newspapers from him, and she’s laying those on the bed with everything else.

“I know that you probably don’t want to help me paint, but if you would help me move everything away from the walls that would be great.” She’s giving him big puppy dog eyes, and he nods that he’ll help.

It takes them a good twenty minutes to move the bed, nightstands, and dresser away from the wall. After that they take the time to unmake the bed, throwing the bedclothes into a pile in the hall.

The Doctor feels more awake by the time that Rose opens the can of paint. The windows are open wide and the sun flows in, mixing into her hair to make Rose’s edges soft and worn looking. They’ve lined the floor with newspaper, and covered the beautiful warm wood of the bed and dresser with the tarps that she brought. The paint is light blue and it matches what the sky looks like in the early morning. 

“My room is pink right now. I picked it out ages ago.” She dips the paint roller into the tray and gets a nice amount of paint on it before she puts it to the wall. “I want to try something new. Mum bought a new bed set and everything. It’s this kind of a blue, with some white and yellow. It’s beautiful.”

Painting a room is fun in the kind of precise way that you have to be to not get paint on the trim or floor, and they get halfway through one wall, before they decide to use the painters tape that Rose brought that that it’s harder for them to make mistakes.

The Doctor calls for pizza not long after that, and they sit on the newspaper-covered floor and eat, laughing at the paint in his hair and the long streak down her thigh. 

It’s nice and it’s fun and it’s tiring and the Doctor doesn’t want to have to go through this again any time soon. He had forgotten how terrible it had been to paint his entire flat when he had first moved in. Of course he had taken it much slower and just slept on the couch for a week when he did the two coats in his bedroom.

She leaves shortly after dark to get back home to packing, but they had gotten finished painting at least. It’s pretty and nice and different than the stark white that it had been before. It feels as clean as before, even as the furniture sits in the middle of the floor, tarp rucked up where one of them had fallen and taken a bit of the tarp with them and then never fixed it, but it feels warm too, alive. 

Before they painted, Rose moving in felt like an abstract thing happening, like it was just a possibility and it would fall through at the last minute and he would go back to having an empty guest room instead of a roommate, but it feels real now. She chose paint because she’s moving in because she’s going to live there and he’s going to live there and they’re going to live together only they aren’t romantically involved no matter how much his subconscious wants to haunt him with dreams of them dating.

He goes to the kitchen and gets another slice of pizza, grabs a soda from the fridge and watches a movie, determined not to fall asleep and dream about her.

It doesn’t work.

He dreams that they’re painting again, only this time it goes from things being nice and neat, to paint being thrown and flung and a mess being made. Once they’re both covered in paint, him in yellow and her in blue, she leans forward and kisses him. Their lips are slick with paint and he has enough time to worry about the health risks of paint ingestion before she pulls back.

When he opens his eyes to look at her, everything is green. Green, green, green, so thick that it’s choking him, and she opens her eyes and they’re green too and then the dream is over and he’s waking up. It’s soft and slow and different from the recent times when he’s woken up out of breath from running after her, or startled awake from falling from a dangerous height.

He isn’t sure what to think, so he turns the TV and goes to take a shower. Scrubbing paint out of his hair is a good relaxation technique and when he’s clean and paint free, he curls up into bed to, hopefully, sleep in peace.

-

The Doctor gets the second tenant’s key from the Brigadier on Thursday and puts it on a necklace chain, tucks it into the pocket of his suit and catches himself messing with it as he goes grocery shopping and when he’s sitting in the TARDIS waiting for Rose to come in to work.

He is pretty sure that he falls asleep staring at his computer screen, because one minute he’s sitting there, hands ready to type, and a second later Rose is tapping on his shoulder.

“Hey. Donna said you had something you wanted to talk to me.” Something sounds off with her, like she’s worried.

“Yeah, I just wanted to give you,” He digs into his pocket, grabbing the chain and pulling the key from his pocket, “this.”

Her eyes light up, and the worry falls from her face. “Really?”

He nods, “’Bout time you had one.” He should have had it all along, but as a person who has been known to lose his keys around the flat it’s just easier if the Brigadier keeps a hold of it until he needed it so that he doesn’t have to try to hide a key in the hallway of an apartment building. 

Rose leans down and wraps her arms around him. It’s an odd hug, with her standing up and him sitting down, and he ends up with a mouthful of her hair, but he hugs her back, sitting up straighter and wrapping his arms around her.

“The Brigadier was thinking Saturday night for dinner. I told him that that was fine with me but I’d have to ask you.” Talking has removed most of the hair from his mouth and when she pulls away, he takes a drink of his coffee to get the taste of burnt hair and her conditioner out of his mouth.

She slips the key around her neck and underneath of her apron. Her hand presses on the TARDIS’ police box logo where the key rests underneath. “That’s fine with me. You’re still coming by to pick up stuff tomorrow, yeah?”

He nods this time, breaking off a piece of his muffin. “I’ll be there, ready and willing.”

Rose grins at that. “I’ve got to get to work now, but thanks. Really.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but she ruffles his hair before walking away quickly. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for him to yell across the mostly empty store to say that it was no problem, but before she head into the back room, she sends another open and happy and wonderful smile at him and he thinks that maybe he doesn’t have to.

When he looks back at his computer, he actually starts typing. He thinks that if all it takes is for Rose to talk to him, than for a small amount of the future he’s in luck. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen if and when she eventually moves out.

-

The Doctor had forgotten how much work moving was. As he drags himself and a chair into their flat, he thinks that he’s glad that he sells most of his furniture anytime that he moves. He’s also very glad that she’s decided to use the bed that he already had. Moving a bed would be much worse than the moderately small chair that he’s currently carrying.

There’s not much space on the floor because of the boxes that are spread out across the floor and the bags that are sitting on the bed, so the Doctor moves himself back out of Rose’s room, down the hall to sit the chair in a corner of the living room that will be out of the way.

He sits down for a moment until he hears Rose trying to fumble the door open. He rushes over to get it, and she says a quiet “Thank you.” After she gets the box to her room, she comes back to reward him with a smile. “I think that’s it. There wasn’t anything left down there other than my mum.”

He collapses back into Rose’s chair, kicking off his shoes and saying, “There wasn’t room for this in your room at the moment. And I’m glad your mother isn’t staying.”

Rose looks offended at this. She’s standing by the door. She hasn’t sat down or taken off her shoes, which reminds the Doctor that he needs to move his car out from the front of the building and into the parking garage. He begins slipping his shoes back on, checking his pocket for his keys.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounds. I don’t do domestics.”

“Isn’t this domestic?” She asks, when they start their walk to the elevator as though she’s had to have time to process what he said.

“No. Families are domestic. Parents and aunts and cousins and sibling and the whole thing.” He feels like he’s missing something and it takes a moment before it hits him. “I knew Sarah Jane before she adopted Luke, and that feels differently.” He thinks that maybe that makes him a hypocrite. Rose doesn’t look as disgusted with him as she could and he’s taking that as a good sign.

When she finally speaks it comes as a surprise when they’re walking out of the front doors of the building. “It would be pretty hard not to like Sarah Jane, domestics and all. Luke is pretty great too, so I can understand that one.”

He stops in his tracks for just a second and that’s all it takes for her to make it to her mum, and push the conversation aside entirely.

After a long tear-filled goodbye, Jackie finally leaves and Rose and the Doctor head back up to the flat. She starts to unpack, and he sits on her bed and manages to write a little in between listening to Rose sing along to the radio and asking him to hand her things.

It’s slow work for both of them, Rose getting distracted with things that she packed up not that long ago, and the Doctor getting distracting with Rose.

He makes dinner at one point that evening and they sit together on the floor in the living room watching the movie version of Clue. It feels like blurring the line between friendship and a date, and if the Doctor felt bad about that at all then he would do something about it, but instead he lets Rose steal food from his plate and slide closer into this state of emotional closeness.

-

From right then, it feels easy and right to have Rose living with him. He showed her that the towels are on one side of the closet directly across from the bathroom and that the washer and dryer are stacked on the other side.

She doesn’t really have any furniture that needs to go into the living room, her books and movies getting put on the shelves in her room that she has him put up. It makes the Doctor glad that they won’t have to worry about who owns what when one of them, eventually moves out.

She doesn’t have anything that they have to make room for in the kitchen either. She only brings her favorite mug, and it slides so nicely onto the shelf next to his that he doesn’t worry about it. It is strange and domestic and he was lying so terribly about not wanting his life to become domestic. He thinks that if domestic is bumping hips and elbows crashing together as they fight over who gets coffee first in the morning that, maybe, domesticity would be his favorite thing.

She fits into his life like he thinks that she would fit under his arm, like her hand would fit into his.

They seem to barely miss each other a lot, him getting that one last cup of coffee before he heads to bed, and her trying to get caffeine to wake her up. She’s lived with him for a week and a half and they never seem to head to the TARDIS at the same time. One of them is always already there, almost like they’re waiting for the other to show up.

They end up walking home from the TARDIS together, finally commuting at the same time. The Doctor had sat and written while she and Donna had been closing the store, music turned off and an eerie feeling cast over everything. The Doctor has been in the TARDIS both before opening and after closing before but it never fails to make him a bit on edge.

But they finally leave and they wait for Donna to lock the doors, giving her a quick hug goodbye, before heading home. They’re both tired, her from being on her feet and dealing with customers all day, him worn out from a long day of emotional exertion, but they’re smiling. The sky looks like rain and, cliché as it is, they’re talking about how they don’t want it to start raining until they’re at home.

Their hands keep bumping together all the way home, knuckles colliding and then bouncing away like nothing had happened. Every time it happens it sends a makes the Doctor’s heart skip a beat.

When they get back to their flat, they both head straight to the kitchen. Last night’s pizza is in the fridge and Rose grabs it, eating a slice cold as she puts another slice on a plate and sticks it in the microwave.

She’s holds the cardboard box out to the Doctor and he shakes his head. “I ate earlier.” He yawns and thinks that maybe he should go to sleep. He is planning on going for a run the next day, shorter than the last one, easier and more helpful than hurtful. 

“More for me.” Rose says, and her mouth is full of pizza and he shouldn’t find that as cute as he does. She’s humming some random song, using the buzzing of the microwave as a background beat, swaying along the tiniest bit. The Doctor wonders as he takes a drink of his soda, if she knows she’s doing it.

It doesn’t take him long before he decides that she probably doesn’t.

She eats her pizza and he drinks his soda and sits with her. He thinks that someone else might think that they weren’t welcome in his home because he was sitting with her, but he thinks that she knows that he is sitting with her because he likes that she is in his home. He hopes that she knows these things because he could not handle it otherwise. He needs for her to get him, and to know what he is thinking so that he doesn’t have to say anything.

It seems that generally a lot of the things that he tries to say come out wrong. That is why he is always so surprised when he writes something that sounds good. He thinks that he becomes someone else when he writes, that he becomes a person that the English language is infatuated with and it makes him wonder when his talent is going to disappear.

He spends a few more minutes watching Rose eat, drinking his soda and trying not to yawn, but after the tenth yawn Rose gives him a look and tells him to go to bed. He nods, eyelids drooping and contentedness pooling in his stomach.

The Doctor starts to shuffle away, bare feet making odd noises on the kitchen floor as he goes, only stopping to lean down and press a quick kiss to the top of Rose’s head. After doing it he stiffens up a bit, waiting for her to lash out at him as he continues to walk away but instead she just turns to look at him, a “goodnight!” on her tongue and her cheeks more pink than they had been a moment ago.

-

The first really awkward thing doesn’t happen until a couple of days after the head kiss.

The Doctor has just woken up and he’s still half asleep, ready to just get a cup of coffee and settle in on the couch for an hour or so to wake up. He rubs at his face, at his hair, waking himself up when the bathroom door opens. 

There’s a small cloud of warm, humid air, and then Rose is stepping out of the bathroom and bumping into the Doctor. She’s got her hair wrapped up in a towel and there is another one wrapping around her body and there is not nearly enough of it.

“Oh! Hi, Doctor.” She says adjusting her grip on the towel so that it doesn’t accidentally fall off. “Good morning.”

“Good morning.” He thinks that he is glad that he’s just woken up so that he can blame his seeing any cleavage on how close they are standing. He is seeing a nice bit of it though. 

“I’ve got to get dressed for work now.” Rose is using a soft tone of voice like she knows that he isn’t fully awake, and she shuffles around him towards her room. The Doctor moves out of her way, and he gets another eyeful of another nice towel covered view before she closes the door.

There is a pot of coffee already made in the kitchen and that is the Doctor’s favorite part of having a roommate; most days he doesn’t have to wait for coffee to brew. 

The coffee is warm but not hot, and he’s halfway through his first cup when Rose comes into the kitchen. She is dressed now, thankfully, but her hair is still wet. She pours herself coffee, with cream and sugar and chocolate syrup. She makes her coffee the same way everyday, even when she’s at the TARDIS (where she usually gets smoothies claiming that she can make coffee at home, but that the smoothies she makes there never turn out as good).

The Doctor grabs the eggs and butter from the fridge. “Do you want an omelette?” he asks before he grabs the milk. If she doesn’t then he’ll just have a fried egg sandwich, which is easier if only a little less tasty.

Rose’s eyes stray towards the clock on the stove. “Yeah. That’d be nice. I’m pretty sure I’ve got time for that.” She sits on the counter by the stove as he gets more ingredients, the chairs at both the counter and the table too far away to have a conversation.

“You’re working an odd shift today. You’ve missed the early morning rush completely.” He’s got ham and cheese and half of an onion in his hands. He puts it all on the opposite side of the stove, grabbing a cutting board to quickly cut a couple of slices off of the onion, before chopping it up with the ham. The cheese is already shredded at least. 

“Martha’s is working all of the really early shifts this week, because of one of her classes. I’m not really sure. I just know that she works four thirty to nine all week and I’m working nine to nine today and then tomorrow I work five to nine with Martha, and nine till two with Amy.

“I think Martha’s got some special class thing happening at ten this week. I’m not sure. She says that this is the only week it will happen. I think that’s just wishful thinking, but I do hope that she gets back to working daytime hours too. I have two twelve hour shifts this week.” She doesn’t sound too angry about that fact, she just sounds like she isn’t looking forward to coming home tired. The Doctor can’t blame her. He likes to think that he works all day most days, but he does a lot of TV watching when he’s home and a lot of trying to decide what he is going to have happen.

“Why don’t Donna and Sarah Jane hire someone else to help?” He asks as he mixes eggs and milk together in a bowl. Omelettes are simple enough to make in theory, but they can end very badly if you aren’t careful. 

“They’re thinking about it. It’s just different when you bring someone else into a group as close as ours.” The eggs are sizzling in the pan now, the bottom beginning to cook. “I think they’ll have to though.”

Next will be the onions, ham after, and finally cheese, and Rose is quiet watching the Doctor cook, and the Doctor is quiet making sure that he doesn’t ruin Rose’s eggs.

When they are done, he gives the first omelette to Rose and states making another for himself, this one having more ham and onions with less cheese, but the second night after Rose had moved in, the night that the Brigadier had called to reschedule because he had gotten the flu and Kate was making him stay in bed (they still haven’t chosen a date for their rain checked dinner and the Doctor makes a mental reminder to call and do that) he had made omelettes for the two of them and they had watched Law and Order reruns until sometime around three in the morning.

When his food is done they eat quickly and quietly, before Rose rushes off to work, the Doctor saying that he’ll be by later. He washes the dishes and makes sure that the kitchen is as clean as it had been before he started cooking, before he heads off to take his own shower, hoping that today will be a good day for getting work done because that is something that he really needs. 

That isn’t exactly what he gets. 

He showers and feels clean and happy and ready to take on the day, at which point he can’t find his laptop. The Doctor could swear that before he went to shower it was sitting on the coffee table where he left it before slinking to bed the night before.

He looks around the entire living room and kitchen, giving only a quick glance to the half of the room that only holds the dining table and bookshelves filled with a variety of books. He checks the bathroom and the linen closet, hoping that he didn’t leave it in a place where water would ruin it. Just because he saved it to a few of his hidden externals yesterday afternoon, doesn’t mean that he wants to have to rewrite even the little bit that he’s got done since then.

He checks on his bed nightstands, going so far as opening the door to Rose’s room to check for it in there. It isn’t until he’s lying on the floor of his bedroom, about to reenact any number of young children’s tempter tantrums, that he chances a look under his bed. He reaches up to rub his face and ends up smacking himself, but he thinks he might deserve it since he was in such a state last night that he stuck his computer under his bed and then didn’t even manage to remember that he did.

After that The Doctor thinks that maybe he should just go back to sleep after that with the reasoning that it’s only nine-thirty in the morning, and he can’t be running on full steam yet. Instead of climbing into bed, he crawls over to his laptop, grabs it, and begins to crawl to the couch.

It would be easier if he stood up and walked but that’s not the mood that he’s in, so he continues to crawl.

(If his life was a sitcom this would be the point where Rose would burst in saying that she forgot something and he would be forced to jump up and pretend that he hadn’t been crawling around the flat and she would think that that was odd but she would laugh and they would play the 1950’s laugh track and subsequently hijinks would ensue. As it is she doesn’t and he continues crawling.)

He makes it to the couch and puts his laptop on the coffee table, laying down and turning on the TV. It’s tuned to the history channel and there’s a marathon of those ‘everything that happened in history was actually caused by aliens’ shows and he settles in. He doesn’t believe in aliens, but he thinks that is they were real they would have better things to do than to build the Empire State building.

He makes it through five and a half episodes, before he gets hungry and decides that he should do something productive. He reaches for his laptop and has a minor panic before realizing that his hand is just too far down the table. He stands up for the first time in hours and stretches. It’s another fifteen-minute search for his laptop bag before he can put his shoes on and slide out the door.

The TARDIS isn’t that busy when he gets there. If it weren’t summer vacation there would be a rush of fresh out of school teenagers clogging up the place. Amy’s face flushes as red as her hair when he walks in, and he wonders what he caught her in the middle of. “Rose, shh!”

“What?” Rose’s head peeks over the counter and she smiles before going back to undoubtedly cleaning what had spilled on the floor. “Hello, Doctor.”

He gives the girls an interesting look but doesn’t ask, walking to the counter and giving his order instead. With the people that work at the TARDIS it is usually just as good not to know.

Amy starts making his drink, and Rose finishes cleaning what he can see when he leans over the counter is cream which seems to have spilled all over everything and it seems the same as every other day until Amy begins making small talk.

“So, I hear it’s your birthday soon, Doctor.” 

His brow furrows and he looks from the top of Rose’s head which is the only part of her that he can see and the back of Amy’s head where she’s facing one of the various coffee making machines. “It isn’t until the end of August, so soon is a relative term. There’s still about a month and a half, how did you find out about it?”

“Rose,” she says as she pours whipped cream on the top of his cup.

“And how did you find out about it?” he leans over the counter so that he can look at her. She throws a glare at Amy, before looking shyly up at him.

Even though she isn’t looking at what she’s doing anymore she’s still rubbing at one of the shelves that has a few cream spots on it. “Well, the Brigadier stopped by the other night wanting to reschedule our dinner and make sure that you hadn’t forgotten to give me my key, he was very glad that you remembered by the way, and he mentioned that it was coming up. So I asked when it was and he told me, and I told Amy because I have no idea what to get you. But don’t worry, because like you said, I still have plenty of time.”

She seems to notice that she was still trying to clean the shelf, so she looks down and gets back to work. “You don’t have to get me anything. Don’t worry about it. I didn’t get you anything for your birthday. I don’t even know when your birthday is.” The Doctor feels bad about that. He probably should have asked, but birthdays aren’t the most important things to him and he usually ends up forgetting about them.

“Mine’s in April. And you weren’t here on my birthday, so that’s fine. I can expect you to know when my birthday is when you haven’t even met me and aren’t even here.” She gets up to rinse out her rag. “But I live with you and have known for a couple of months now, so there’s no excuse.” When she gets back to her spot by the counter she stands and looks at him. “Don’t try and stop me, I’m going to get you something anyway.”

Amy is finished with his drink and comes to stand next to Rose before he can say anything. “Rory and I are going to get you something too.” She’s crossing her arms over her chest and he tastes his drink. It’s good and just the thing that he needed after five hours of being sedentary. “By the way, my birthday is in October, so don’t forget.” 

“I’ll be sure not to.” He is about to protest more to their celebrating his birthday, but when Rose looks up at him, it’s as if she can read his mind. “I’m just going to go sit down now.”

The two of them nod at him and he slowly makes his way to his table, making a mental note to find out the exact dates of their, and Martha and Donna and Sarah Jane’s, birthdays.

That night when the TARDIS is closed the Doctor and Rose begin to walk home, the thoughts come back to him. “Earlier, when I first got to the TARDIS, I just meant that I don’t expect anything for my birthday.”

Rose groans and hobbles on a bit more. Her feet are sore after being on them for twelve hours. “Like I said earlier, I’m getting you something anyway, so shut up. I thought we had dropped this.” She stops walking and leans against a wall, toeing her shoes off with a sigh. She mumbles, “That’s much better,” before they walk on.

“Hold on. Hop on my back.” He’s stopped and he’s leaning forward and messing with the strap of his laptop bag, squatting just a bit, bracing himself so that he’s ready for when she jumps onto his back.

She doesn’t.

“What? What do you mean, hop on your back? I can’t let you carry me.” He chances a look over at her, where she stands next to him. She looks more confused than angry, no matter what her words and tone may suggest.

“Yes, you can now come on. Hop up. You can’t walk without any shoes on, and I don’t think that you want to put the shoes back on, so come on.” He claps his hands where they’re braced on his legs. “You’re not going to break me. I’m not that weak. C’mon.”

“Alright, whatever you say.” Rose readjusts her purse and scratches at her head before moving to stand behind him. She seems to be trying to decide on what would be the best way to get on his back, and he’s about to say something when he feels a warmth against his back.

A second later arms are around his neck and for a moment it feels as if he’s experiencing the world’s strangest hug, he wonders what the other people on the street think, but then she’s lifting her legs and wrapping them around his waist, crossing them in front of him to secure herself.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” she says and he knew that she was going to be closer to his face, but it feels like she’s speaking directly into his ear. For all he knows she could be doing just that. He stands up and she slides down a little bit. She shifts to get readjusted, and a moment later they’re heading towards home again.

She laughs and it’s loud in his ears, but it’s perfect too.

“What’s so funny?” There’s a smile on his face and in his voice and he hopes that it matches the one that’s undoubtedly lighting up her face. He hopes that it makes the strangers walking by think ‘Aww. They’re a cute couple,” before they go on with their mundane thoughts of shopping lists and bills that need paying.

“I was just thinking that I couldn’t remember the last time I had a piggy back ride. It’s more fun than I remember.” Her shoes are clattering together in front of his chest and the bones in her arms are pulling on his laptop bag and pushing into his shoulders, but he’s got his forearms under her thighs to hold her up and she’s warm against his back and laughing and smiling at the side of his face and it’s perfect. “Thank you.”

He moves his arms, bouncing her up a bit so that she’s more stable, and she makes a scared noise and tightens her arms. His ear hurts, but after a moment she loosens her arms and relaxes again.

He says, “No problem,” and he carries her all the way back to their door, only putting her down once they are inside.

-

The Doctor is still awake when Rose gets up for work the next morning and she tucks him into bed on the couch, bringing him the blanket and pillow off of his bed and telling him to get some sleep before she rushes out the door. He drops off quickly and then stays asleep until after she gets home. He’s almost certain that he would be awake even after that if there wasn’t a large crash from the kitchen.

He wakes up with a jolt and jumps up, twisting towards where he knows the opening to the kitchen is, only the blanket that he’d been curled up with gets wrapped around his legs and he falls to the floor in another loud crash.

He’s groaning on the floor, when Rose comes to kneel next to him. “What happened? Are you okay?” She touches his head and his shoulder, but doesn’t seem to know what else to do. There’s really not much else that she can do.

He pushes himself up onto his arms and manages to move so that he can lean against the couch. He’s out of breath so it’s between attempts to breathe normally that he answers her question. “I’m fine. I fell. What happened with you?”

“I was getting a pan down to make some lunch and everything fell out of the cabinet. I’m sorry. Get some more rest, everything’s fine. I’ll come and get you when I’m done cooking.”

He nods but doesn’t move from where he rests next to the sofa. “What are you making?”

“Hot ham and cheese sandwiches with chips. Want one?”

“Yeah, please. Thanks.”

She smiles, and goes to the kitchen to clean up and then cook one would assume. He thinks about moving back onto the couch but instead he untangles himself and wraps back up in the blanket, grabbing the remote and settling in to watch something.

Rose comes back about twenty minutes later with two plates. There’s a sandwich on each of them, and they’re stacked high with chips.

“Here.” She hands one to him and they watch the movie that’s playing on TV. She tells him about her day and he complains that he’s never going to eat all of the chips that she put on his plate.

She steals them and he threatens to take the last bit of her sandwich. He bargains his chips away for her sandwich, and then she shares the chips with him after he finishes the sandwich and eyes her chips longingly.

“Alright, I’m going to go take a nap before dinner.” She says, a little while later when the movie is over, standing and grabbing their plates from the table, walking to put them in the sink.

“Didn’t we just have lunch?” He’s moving onto the couch, back stiff from sitting on the floor of the living room for even that moderately short amount of time. “What are you thinking about dinner already for?”

“I invited the Brigadier over,” She says coming out of the kitchen and walking to the hall. “I know that I didn’t ask you if you were busy, but it’s mainly me that he wants to see and I knew that I would be free tonight, and so I invited him. He’s coming at seven, so I need to be up at five-thirty so that I can cook. Can you be sure that I’m getting up then? Because I don’t want to mess this up by having nothing cooked.”

“I can do that. It will be my pleasure.” Rose grins at the Doctor, and he calls out a “sleep well!” before her door closes. 

He writes for a while and stretches on the couch, lying with a leg hooked over the back of the couch and an arm dangling off of the front. The laptop on his stomach is warm and it makes him want to doze off. Instead he decides that going for a short run would be a better use of his time.

He’s in his pajamas still, baggy shorts and a t-shirt, and it saves him the trouble of having to change back into them. Then he’s slipping on his shoes and grabbing his phone and headphones before heading out the door. On his way down to the lobby, he thinks that he should have grabbed his keys or locked the door, but he won’t be gone for too long especially since he has to make sure to wake Rose up. He makes sure to knock on the wood of the door as he leaves, not wanting to tempt his luck.

He makes it back to the flat in time to shower and watch an episode of his favorite procedural police drama on the DVR before he has to check on Rose. He’s thinking about how long is the appropriate amount of time to wait after someone’s alarm goes off to wake them up yourself when Rose stumbles into the living room. 

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

“It’s not morning, but I am sleepy.” She’s slurring her words a bit, and she punctuates the sentence with a giant yawn. She tenses up from where she had plopped on the couch to look at him seriously, not slurring anymore when she speaks again. “It isn’t morning though, is it? I told you to wake me up.”

“I was just about to. You were right it’s not morning.” She’s pillowed her face into the back of the couch and he rubs at her head, trying to comfort her. “Depending on what you’re cooking you have still got a little bit of time before you have to get up.”

She pushes her head into his hand and then stands up to stretch. “Nah. I better do it already. The sooner I get it done the sooner I can relax and not have to worry about it.” 

“Anything I can do to help?”

“As a matter of fact.”

They spend the next twenty minutes peeling and cutting potatoes before putting them into the pot next to the roast that she’s cooking. Some carrots and half of an onion are thrown in and the Doctor wonders where this food came from. He doesn’t remember having baby carrots in their fridge that morning. 

She tells him that she went to the grocery on her way home and that it should be done just in time for dinner if she’s done the math right, and they head into the living room to wait for the timer to go off. He writes and she dozes, eyes barely focused on the show that she is supposed to be watching. Her head ends up on his shoulder at one point, and he doesn’t know how the muscles in his arm moving as he types isn’t bothering her.

He does accidentally jostle her once as her reaches to grab his soda from the table, and she startles awake. He thinks about patting his shoulder and telling her to get back to her nap, but she stands up and shuffles into the kitchen.

There’s the sound of movement in the kitchen but the Doctor can’t make out what Rose is doing. She walks back into the living room and plops onto the couch a few moments later, saying “I didn’t want the roast to dry out.”

He nods and they return to sitting on the couch in an almost perfect picture of domesticity.

It feels like no time passes between then and when the Brigadier knocks on the door. The Doctor opens it and then no time actually does pass before the oven timer goes off. 

Rose runs off to get it out of the oven and check that it’s cooked and the men shake hands by the door, before moving to follow her into the kitchen. 

“Sir Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, this is Rose Tyler.” The Doctor introduces them and Rose shucks her oven mitts, walking over and reaches out to shake his hand.

“It’s nice to finally meet you in person.” She’s smiling the big, wide, friendly smile that she gives to customers every day only it feels real right now. When she’s at work she has to make sure the customers are happy, but right now when she’s at home she gets to be normal. It’s a side of Rose that he hadn’t know that he was missing until she moved in with him.

“Indeed it is.” They drop each other’s hands and the Doctor listens to them speak as he goes to turn the tv off. “I’m really very sorry that I couldn’t come last time.”

“It’s probably better that you didn’t though. Could you give me a hand?” Rose is putting her oven mitts back on. The Brigadier nods and she gestures to a couple of potholders sitting on the counter. “If you could just sit those on the table for me. Don’t want to ruin the table.”

The Brigadier grabs the potholders and carries them to the table, Rose walking slowly behind him making sure not to drop or spill anything. The Doctor grabs a stack of plates and silverware, laying those out at three of the chairs at the table.

Rose gets them cups and fills them with ice, bringing out a bottle of soda from the fridge. She fills a cup and puts it in front of the chair that she normally sits at. “What would you like to drink? We’ve got iced sweet tea and soda and water and milk and tomato juice- Doctor you really need to stop buying that- and lemonade.”

The Doctor has a glass of sweet tea, drinking tea cold was a habit that he picked up during the time he spent in the southern United States, and the Brigadier has a glass of soda. They sit down at the other two places set at the table and Rose brings over a slotted spoon for the vegetables and the larger sharper knife that they’ll need to cut the meat.

The three of them are chatting away about the weather and what Kate is doing and Rose isn’t sure of who gets to serve themselves first. She thinks it should be the Doctor because it’s his home and he’s the man of the house, but the Brigadier was a brigadier and he was knighted and that demands some kind of respect. Before she can panic too much about it, she just slices off some of the roast beef, and spoons some veggies on her plate and sits the knife down. The men can decide on who goes first.

The Doctor grabs the spoon and gets potatoes while the Brigadier cuts himself a slice of the roast. They trade and everyone has food and the Doctor wonders why Rose had looked so freaked out as she cut her food. She’s looking comfortable now though as she gets up to get the butter from the fridge and the salt from over the stove. 

-

Dinner goes well.

They all eat and compliment Rose on her cooking, and she pulls a store-bought pie from the fridge. It’s not homemade but it’s good and they sit around the table drinking coffee and eating pie for almost half an hour.

They go to see what Rose has done with her room and it’s different than it had been the last time the Doctor was in there. She’s framed a few posters and they’re hanging on the wall, the black plastic frames standing out against the pale blue of the wall.

After that they stand in the living room near the door talking for a while before the Brigadier leaves. Rose says goodbye around a yawn even though she had been wide-awake for dinner. The Doctor grabs her shoulders and leads her back to her bedroom. 

He tells her to change out of the clothes that she wore today, and get into her pajamas and get some sleep. “You’re off tomorrow so you don’t have to worry about waking up early. Just rest.”

She nods and reaches into one of the drawers in her dresser, pulling out clothes and tossing them onto her bed. The Doctor closes the door tightly behind him.

He heads to grab his laptop from the couch before heading to sit in bed and get some writing done before he goes to sleep.

-

When he finally finishes his novel a week later, everything seems to go his way. Everyone seems to have forgotten that his birthday is in just over a month and Rassilon calls him with an invite to a formal dinner event the next weekend that he had RSVP’d the Doctor for without asking.

When Rose overhears she lights up and the Doctor invites her to go as his date. She grins and kisses him on the cheek and runs off to make plans to go dress shopping with her mother. The Doctor isn’t looking forward to asking Rassilon if he can bring a plus one, but when he does the older man is just relieved that he doesn’t have to find a date for the Doctor himself.

(The last time he had had to do so, it hadn’t worked out well.)

Rassilon asks to talk to Rose, and the two of them spend what is surely a too long amount of time talking about where she should buy her dress and what color it should be and what type of shoes she should wear and the Doctor listens to the half of the conversation that he can hear.

Do you actually understand what you are talking about?, mouths the Doctor and Rose nods at him, and watches the muted TV screen trying to be more focused on what they are talking about.

When he gets the phone back from Rose, Rassilon tells him that he should make sure that his tux fits, so that he has enough time to get it tailored if he needs too and the Doctor says that he will before they hang up. “I’m glad that you understood, because from what I heard you say, I would be so confused.”

“That’s the reason why you just have to deal with your tux.” She leans down to kiss him on the top of the head, as she slips on her shoes. “I know what I’m supposed to be doing. Now I’ll see you later, I’m going to have dinner with my mom and tell her everything that Mr. Rassilon told me. I may sleep over there tonight depending, so don’t worry if I’m not home.”

“Alright, bye!” the Doctor says, calling out to Rose. He’s staring at the end of his completed book, and he can feel Rose’s lips on his scalp through his hair and he’s got plans for a good dinner where he’ll have a beautiful and lovely woman on his arms and things are going pretty good for him right at this moment.

“Bye!”

-

Rose has a dress bag when she comes home the next afternoon and the Doctor still hasn’t tried on his tux. He does so quickly and is relieved when it fits and he doesn’t have to send it off. 

The next week seems to fly by in a mass of meetings with Rassilon and watching a lot of TV without feeling guilty for not writing. 

When they big night comes, Jackie shows up at somewhere around three o’clock and her and Rose hide away in Rose’s room. Jackie comes out once to get them sodas and she comes out again so that she can cover his eyes while Rose goes to the bathroom. The Doctor feels like the male protagonist in a coming of age film, where he’s not allowed to see the geeky girl until she’s transformed into the princess. 

The metaphor doesn’t really fit because Rose is gorgeous even when she’s hasn’t washed her hair in a few days, and is wearing sweats with a few days old leftover make-up lingering around her face. He thinks sometimes that he likes her best that way, because that is the Rose that not many people have gotten to see. 

When it comes to be the right time, the Doctor goes and get into the shower. He puts on his tuxedo and spikes up his hair, putting on his fancy black sneakers and plops onto the couch and waits for Rose to be ready. If he were still living alone, he would be sitting on the couch in just a towel waiting for a suitable amount of time before he would have to leave to get his date, but since his date lives with him, he doesn’t get to do either of those things.

He fiddles with his bow tie and when there are loud noises coming from Rose’s room, he almost jumps up to go save the day. When he doesn’t hear anything else he just relaxes back into the couch and taps his toes. He wonders what kind of picture of false relaxation he’s painting right now, lounging on the couch and channel surfing. 

It’s not too long after that that he and Rose are supposed to be leaving the house and he starts getting nervous, undoubtedly looking like a teenage boy waiting for his prom date on the big night. He probably should have gotten her some kind of flowers or jewelry, but since he didn’t know what she was wearing he didn’t know what colors to match anything to.

He’s lucky that his tuxedo is all black and will go with whatever she’s wearing.

Jackie comes out in the living room, and makes him stand up and he’s sure that this is the only time he’s going to feel like Freddie Prinze Jr., but then Rose steps out of the hallway and his jaw feels like it hits the floor.

She’s in a beautiful deep purple dress, with her hair pulled up and twisting in a way that he is certain is going to distract him all night, and her lips are a nice soft pink that will distract him from her hair and the way her dress lays and he really should say something already.

“You look stunning.” And he thinks that he should have come up with a better compliment.

“Thank you. You’re not too shabby yourself.” She’s swaying like she can’t stop herself and the fabric is nice and flowing and he watches it make waves all the way to the floor. “I really do like the dress. Rassilon know what he was talking about when he told me where to go. I can’t believe he paid for it too.

“From the way he sounded, it was the money he was going to use to buy you an escort for the night. I’m not sure which was a better use of his money, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

Rassilon was born rich and likes spending money on other people, but only when it will make him look better in the end. He bought the dress for Rose because Rose will look good and the Doctor will look good, and if the Doctor looks good that makes Rassilon will look even better. The Doctor doesn’t mind though, because it’s worth boosting the man’s ego a bit to see Rose in this dress.

Jackie pulls a camera out of her purse and makes the two of them stand together, and now it’s definitely prom night but he can’t find it in him to object. There are a few minutes of small talk before the two of them have to head out before they’re late.

There’s a hired car outside when they get there, and it makes the Doctor wonder what else Rassilon has planned because he didn’t do this even though he probably should have.

The ride to the venue is quiet and he and Rose spend it looking out the window even though they pass things that they see often enough. It’s quick and it feels like it’s done in a moment. After he gets out of the car, he holds his hand out to help Rose out of the car and she clutches onto it. 

When they begin to walk inside Rassilon is right at the door. It’s lucky that he is because the Doctor doesn’t quite know where to go or what to do after he walks into the room. Rassilon leads them through lobby and past the door where security stands waiting, walking them straight to their table.

After they know where they’re expected when the food is brought out, it’s time to mingle. The Doctor doesn’t like this part, and he knows a moderate amount of these people. He can’t imagine that Rose feels comfortable, because she doesn’t know anyone other than him and he’s on edge. 

When he glances a look at her while they’re being talked at by a couple of people whose names he really needs to remember, she looks comfortable. She’s in her fancy dress with her fancy hair and her fancy high heels and she looks just as comfortable as she does when she’s standing in the TARDIS and fixing coffee. It makes the Doctor relax to see her so relaxed, and he it’s only when he thinks about reaching out to take her hand that he realizes that they still haven’t let go of each other from when he helped her out of the car.

The dinner itself is good, if boring.

They share a table with Rassilon and his date and the Master and his date. Rassilon’s lady friend doesn’t say anything, but Lucy Cole, the Master’s date, seems to be doing everything she can to make the Master pay more attention to him. She also keeps sending Rose looks of disgust and confusion. The Doctor doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t want to make the Master angry by confronting his date. That is the last thing that he wants.

They listen to the speaker talk about whatever the dinner is for, and the Doctor thinks that he should pay attention in case anyone asks him about it later, but there’s a blinking light in the corner and he’s pretty sure that the Master is staring at Rose and Rose isn’t noticing because she’s actually paying attention to what is being said.

The Doctor will have her give him a recap later and for once he won’t have to ask Rassilon, who always goes off on a tangent about how he should listen and that next time he won’t have to go before he finally talks about what had been said.

-

When the speech is finished and the Doctor is starting to feel guilty for not paying attention everyone begins to leave. He grabs Rose’s hand again so that he doesn’t lose her in the crowd and they walk outside.

There is a ton of people trying to get taxis and photographers are trying to get pictures of the more famous people. He pulls on Rose’s hand and they slip off to the side and begin walking up the street. It’s too far to walk home, but they can hopefully get away from where there are no open cars and no breathing room. 

The Doctor likes the clicking of Rose’s shoes. It lets him know where she is. He’s been hearing it all night but it hasn’t gotten on his nerves yet, it might soon but it hasn’t yet and that’s the part that matters. He can feel the fabric of her dress move in the wind and with the movement of her legs to run over their hands. In the dim evening light her hair is still pulled back and her lips are still perfectly pink and he thinks that maybe he should just lean down and kiss her until-

An empty cab passes by, and he gets to stop writing poetry about her in his head.

They slide in and drop hands and instead of looking out the windows they look at each other and Rose fill him in on everything that he wasn’t paying attention to. It’s much nicer than when Rassilon has to do it, because she doesn’t yell at him. She just smiles at him.

-

Things seem to go about as normal for the week. They go to the TARDIS and he drinks coffee and she stocks the shelves and Donna comes over to eat and the three of them watch comedy specials on TV and laugh together late into the night. 

He starts the first revision of his book, and complains all the time. It takes Sarah Jane coming into the TARDIS for him to stop doing so out loud there, and Rose threatens to pour his tomato juice on him if he doesn’t just quit in general.

“But why shouldn’t I get to complain? You and Donna and Amy get to complain about work, but I don’t get to complain about revisions and edits?”

She flops down onto the couch and tucks her feet under his leg; her toes cold even through the thick fabric of his shorts. “No. Because you decided to be an author and you know that all of this came with writing. That’s how writing works.”

There’s a glass of cold lemonade in her hand, and she turns her head to focus on the TV and ignores him before he gets the chance to say anything. He ends up closing the laptop when he gets interested in the show and decides to put off doing work for a little while.

-

A couple of weeks later August is in full swing. It’s hot and heavy and he’s looking forward to when it will start to cool down. It’s still not for another couple of months but it’s within his sights now. It isn’t like when things are just starting to warm up, and you’ve forgotten about the winter that you just came out of.

The ladies of the TARDIS all seem to stop talking when he walks in now, just for a moment but long enough that he begins to take notice. They aren’t ignoring him or acting any different but that seems all the more suspicious to him. Martha brings him a cookie one day when he sits at his table shaking in anger and irritation, and Jack takes to grinning at him when he rushes in to get his coffee before he has to rush back to work. Apparently things have gotten busy for him.

Rory comes to sit with him most days while he waits for Amy, which it seems that he does a lot. Amy it seems dislikes waiting around for things, so she rushes towards them, making sure to always have a plan of something to do. Then she makes Rory tag along behind her, pulling her along for the ride.

The Doctor thinks that in some other place where he and Rose did more than to go to the grocery and watch TV on their sofa they would be the same way. As it is they are going to see a movie with Amy and Rory sometime, and they’re trying to talk Martha and Donna into going with them.

Everything seems to be going swimmingly until he gets a card in the mail. It’s from the Master, and it’s wishing him a happy birthday almost two weeks early. It’s not a surprise and he thinks that he much rather would have preferred not to get a card at all. He throws it away before he’s finished reading when Rose walks in. It’s not like he really needed to listen to more scathing comments from the Master.

She must find his startled movements odd, because she gives him a look that he’s more used to getting from Donna but she shakes her head and seems to let it drop.

“Amy says that Saturday is good for her and Rory to go to the cinema, so long as we don’t mind if his cousin goes. I don’t mind and was thinking that if she goes, then we can get Mickey to go, and I can set him up with Martha.” She’s flicking through the mail, checking if there’s anything for her. He doesn’t remember there being anything for her, but his birthday card had distracted him. “I was thinking we could catch an early matinee since we’re closed because they’re re-waxing the floor and we’re closed.”

“You’re going to set Martha up with Mickey?” It comes out louder than he had meant it to, and he has to force himself to speak normally. “When did you decide to do that?”

“Ages ago.” She’s tearing open some letter. “What do you think about Saturday?”

“Oh it’s fine. I was just going to spend the day working and watching TV. It’s not like I can’t do that some other time.” He’s still caught up on the idea of Martha and Mickey. It’s not that he can’t see it, he can. They would work well together, make a good team but the thought never occurred to him before.

He’s gotten to know Mickey better since Rose moved in. The two of them will lounge on the couch and watch movies and talk the Doctor into abandoning his work so that he can join them. Mickey is a good guy and in another time or place the Doctor would be glad to think of him as a best friend, but as it is he is too jealous of the fact that he used to go out with Rose and that while things didn’t work out between them romantically they have still been able to stay best friends.

The Doctor is not good at pretending that he isn’t jealous. He only finds it strange that Rose doesn’t seem to notice. Or she pretends not to notice.

“Good. I’ll just go call Amy then.” She grabs a snack from the cabinet and heads to her room, sliding her phone from her pocket.

The Doctor isn’t one for making plans, choosing to fly by the seat of his pants when he does something so it seems odd to have almost an entire week before something as simple as a group outing to the movies. He tries to forget it entirely so that he doesn’t have to worry about it, because Amy and Rory are dating and so they’re going to the movie together on a date. Martha and Mickey both haven’t said whether they’re going or not, but the Doctor knows the two of them and they’ll go and they will be on a date.

That leaves Rose and himself who will, as far as the Doctor knows, not be on a date. Also Donna, who is seeing someone but doesn’t want to introduce the gang yet.

He tries to forget that it’s happening so that he doesn’t worry and overthink everything to the point where he won’t be able to enjoy the film and everything will become awkward and so that is not what he needs to happen.

And surprisingly enough it doesn’t.

The seven of them go to the theater and they don’t argue as much as expected, and in the end they all see the same film. A ton of over-salted popcorn and over-priced drinks are bought and they take up the majority of a row near the middle of the theatre and the other people that show up to watch the movie sit far, far away from them. Before the movie starts they’re loud and talkative, and the Doctor is between Rory and Rose and he’s glad of it.

If he looks across Rose he can see Mickey sitting next to her, with Martha on the end, and if he looks across Rory he can see Amy and Donna talking about who knows what.

When the lights go down, they all talk along with the pre-roll that tells them not to talk during the movie, before going silent. The movie seems to pass quickly and the Doctor can see Amy snuggling in close to Rory about halfway through.

They go to dinner as a group and talk about the TARDIS, and Rory and Martha’s classes being out for the summer, and things go wonderfully. Donna gets drunk, and Mickey matches her drink for drink. The Doctor thinks about drinking with them before remembering that someone has to drive and Rory and Martha have their own cars to worry about and Rose doesn’t have her license. 

Amy and Rose both drink a single fruity drink, and Martha and Rory share looks of disgust. The Doctor can’t say anything because he likes drinking banana daiquiris when he isn’t the one that has to make sure that he makes it home in one piece.

After dinner they head home, with Donna going with Martha and Mickey getting shuffled into the backseat of the Doctor’s car. They decide that he Mickey can sleep on Rose and the Doctor’s couch and that they’ll take him back to the restaurant for his car in the morning. 

The Doctor thinks that tonight might be the best birthday party that he’s had in a really long time, and they didn’t mention his birthday once, and it wasn’t actually a party no matter how much it felt like one.

-

The next day proves him wrong like a smack in the face.

It’s Sunday and the TARDIS is closed again, Sarah Jane is doing some other deep-cleaning and renovation things. They wake up early and the Doctor makes breakfast, waking up Mickey and dropping a plate of eggs and toast on his chest. Rose sits on Mickey’s legs and he complains about it, but when she stands up he doesn’t move them so she sits on them again.

The Doctor sits in one of their armchairs and puts his feet on their coffee table. When you watch Mickey and Rose interact you can see all of the years that they’ve known each other come out to play. It’s the same with Amy and Rory only there’s noticeable love between them, and with Mickey and Rose you can tell the love there is only between friends.

(Jackie told the Doctor once that when Rose and Mickey had been younger she had had dreams that the two of them were going to get married one day. She also told him that she was glad they haven’t and that they probably won’t.)

He eats his food and drives Mickey to get his car and Rose tells him that she has things that she has to do at home so she doesn’t want him around. He decides that he’ll go to the secondhand bookstore and then pick up another bookshelf like he’s been meaning to for ages. 

Time seems to warp so that it both slows down and speeds up and before he knows it Rose is calling him to tell him that she’s made dinner and that he needs to show up moderately soon so that he gets to eat while it’s at least warm.

He doesn’t remember what exactly happened the last time that Rose cooked, but he thinks that in the end they ended up calling for pizza. There are a few fast food places on the way home and he thinks about telling Rose that he already ate and stopping by one of them before he goes home. She went to the effort of cooking though, so the least that he can do is eat.

If they have to call for delivery anyway, then so be it.

He braces himself for a terrible dinner, before he opens the door. Instead of finding what is sure to be a terrible casserole keeping warm in the oven, he finds all of his friends waiting in the living room.

The room is almost ready to burst with the amount of people, and everyone makes a noise when they see him. It’s a chorus of “happy birthday!” and “surprise!” and it’s almost deafening. 

He sees Rose first from where she’s standing at the front of the crowd, with Donna and Martha on either side. Rose tells him that Amy and Rory are on music duty just as the music starts to play.

He mingles around and talks to everyone, surprised that the room isn’t just filled with Sarah Jane and the people who went to the movies with him the day before. People who used to work at the TARDIS are there and mingling with the author’s that he considers himself the closest to.

Rassilon is there, and is managing to be in the middle of everything and also off to the side judging everything, and the Master is talking to everyone, undoubtedly trying to overhear some kind of gossip even if he doesn’t know the person being gossiped about.

“Who invited him?” The Doctor asks when Rose slips a drink into his hand.

“No one.” She sips at her own drink and looks to keep her eyes on the Master. “He just showed up, and threatened to tell everyone that they had the wrong place if we didn’t let him in. Mr. Rassilon-“

Rassilon slips up behind her as though by saying his name summoned him. The Doctor wouldn’t be surprised if it had. “Just call me Rassilon, my dear. The mister just doesn’t sound right.” He slips back away just as fast as he had appeared, heading off towards the kitchen.

“Okay, well, Rassilon had said that he would keep an eye on him and stop him from causing too much trouble. I didn’t have much choice but to believe him.” She leans in closely to whisper directly into the Doctor’s ear. “They both scare me.”

The Doctor laughs at that and whispers back, “They scare me too.”

They spend a moment laughing with each other, and the Doctor knows right then that that is the moment that this became the best birthday that he’s ever had.

“There is a ton of food in the kitchen, I don’t know if you’ve been in there yet.” Rose says.

“I haven’t. Did you…?” He trails off, hoping that she understands what he means and doesn’t get offended.

“Oh, God no. We ordered in, and Donna made the cake. I didn’t cook anything, don’t worry.” She’s smiling at him, and he hopes that he isn’t off the hook just because it’s his birthday party. 

When he finally manages to get in there, there is a ton of food in the kitchen. He grabs a slice of pizza, and tries to stand in the most out of the way place possible, which leaves him standing in a corner out of the way of the people milling in and out.

He manages to get through the piece of pizza and a piece of chicken before someone comes to drag him back out into the party. He tries to explain to Martha that he is hungry and he needs to eat and that all of the food is in the kitchen.

“You’re not going to starve. The food will still be there in a little while, and after the party is over. You need to hang out with your friends. You need to have fun.” She’s pulling into the center of the room.

The couch, chair, and coffee table have all been moved farther from the TV to make room for people to walk through the room. It’s better space management, and the Doctor thinks that maybe they should leave it like this after the party except for the fact that he wouldn’t be able to rest his feet on the coffee table.

It doesn’t matter too much though. There is a large gap of open space either way, but this way it’s in the center of the room, while normally it’s at the back.

“I was having fun eating. And I had fun yesterday. My life is filled with fun, so you can just let me get back to-“

Martha doesn’t let the Doctor finish what he was going to say. She cuts off his words with a simple, “No.”

She glares at him until he says, “okay” and then in a flurry of something, he’s not sure what to call it, the music is turning up just a bit and almost everyone starts dancing. It’s like a flash mob, if flash mobs had no overarching choreography.

Everyone is just moving, and then the Doctor is moving too, and it’s strange to get caught up in the flow. He sees Rose and she’s dancing with Rory, and Amy is by the speakers still controlling the sound system with Sarah Jane next to her. Mickey and Martha are dancing with each other, and Donna is dancing with a person the Doctor has never met before.

It doesn’t feel like a rave or a club, but like a house party thrown by a teenager. There are a few people standing by the walls and the Master is lounging across the couch. 

The Doctor decides that if he thinks about this more he will be over-thinking it, so he just decides to dance.

-

The party ends moderately early, with the last people to leave going home at just past midnight. It was a Sunday and most everyone has work in the morning. They could have waited and had the party on the next Saturday, or even on the day before instead of going to the movies.

There’s a small pile of gifts in the kitchen and quite a stack of envelopes next to it, the food is still spread out across the counter, and they won’t have to worry about having to find something to eat for days with what’s left.

“How did you guys manage to pull this off?” He’s carrying a trash bag around and picking up stray trash. It’s not everywhere because the party was filled with adults and not children, but there’s enough to be able to tell that alcohol was available.

“It was a lot of secret planning while you weren’t in the TARDIS. We’ve been planning for ages.” The Doctor thinks that the times that he caught Rose and Amy or Martha talking about goodness knows what when he’s walked into the TARDIS makes so much more sense now. “And it took some minor snooping to find people that weren’t us that you liked. Rassilon was good help with that though.”

There’s still music playing quietly in the background. It’s giving the night a soft feeling, and Rose is grabbing plastic throwaway plates and stacking them up before tossing them into the Doctor’s trash bag.

“Did I say thank you before? Thank you. I should have told the rest of the girls too, and Rassilon.” He makes a note to himself to tell them that, and then gets back to cleaning up.

“Doctor, you said thank you about a thousand times. It was no problem. It was possibly even fun.”

The music shifts from whatever pop song had been playing into In The Mood, and Rose tosses her latest handful of plates and takes the garbage bag from the Doctor.

She holds out a hand and the Doctor is a bit confused.

“What?” He asks, hand still clenched around where he had been holding a trash bag a moment ago.

“Dance with me.” When he doesn’t move she steps closer, and adds. “Come on. The world won’t end when the Doctor slow dances.”

He thinks of all of the ways that this could end badly. He could step on her toes, or put his hand in a place where she doesn’t want his hand. He could pull her even closer and lean in closely, moving a hand to cradle the back of her head and kiss her, just like he has been trying not to for months. Other than that it can’t be too terrible, so he takes her hand and steps close to her. 

It takes a couple of awkward steps before her remembers how to dance. The steps become easier then. They fit together better, the Doctor leading Rose all around their living room. It’s something that would be more impressive if there were other people around to look impressed, but as it is it’s pretty great.

They end with him dipping Rose, and even though it’s her that has blood rush to her head, he feels dizzy.

He feels like he’s on fire and she’s shining brighter than the lights in their apartment, brighter than the stars in the late night sky, brighter than the sun that will rise in the morning. 

Rose is laughing in his ear and leaning on him. “That was really fun. Thanks.” She leans back and grins up at him, before flopping down onto the couch. “Go get some sleep. It was your surprise party; you shouldn’t have to help clean up.” She punctuates her sentence with a giant yawn, and her eyes drop closed for a moment too long.

“How about we make a deal. We both get some sleep, and both clean in the morning.”

“But it’s your party, you shouldn’t have to clean, don’t you listen?” Her eyes are still closed, and it seems that she’s about to fall asleep on their couch.

“I don’t care. I want to help. I didn’t have to plan anything, so at least I can clean up.” The Doctor holds out a hand and pulls Rose onto her feet. “Okay?”  
“Alright.”

“Okay. Off to bed now.” He walks with her to her bedroom, and only lets go of her hand when she grabs onto the door handle. He quickly adds, “Sleep well.” 

“Goodnight, Doctor.” Rose leans forward and up and presses a quick kiss to the Doctor’s lips, before turning to slip into her room.

He thinks that she had to have been half asleep and buzzed to kiss him, but he feels even warmer now. He tingles and thinks of his own alcohol ingestion and smiles. He goes to the kitchen to put the food into the refrigerator so that it won’t go bad before walking back to bed.

It is officially the best birthday that he has ever had.

-

Edits on the book take longer and longer, and get more boring but he powers through them and thinks that he’ll be glad when this book is over. That maybe he’ll take a month-long vacation and do even more nothing than he already did. He’ll take Rose and they’ll go and road trip across the United States.

It’s something that he meant to do the last time that he was there but when he tried, he got from New York to one of the small islands off of the east coast and decided to just stay there until moving here.

He sits in the TARDIS and drinks coffee and it’s normal if routine and boring. He wants to have something exciting happen again, wants to break the monotony of just editing and editing and editing. He isn’t looking forward to talking about his book, but he thinks that the bit of traveling and difference that comes with it will be better at least for a little while.

He and Rose haven’t talked about her kissing him at his birthday party. He wants to talk about it though. He wants to kiss her more and that’s where his mind lingers while he edits, that’s why edits are taking more and more time. 

The Doctor knows that if he’s going to do something about what he wants he should just go for it and say something, but what if he ruins what they have. It would break his heart into a thousand tiny pieces if Rose turned him down and decided that she couldn’t be his friend.

So instead of saying something he’s just going to roll with the flow. Rose can make the first move. That’s allowed.

A few weeks have passed since his party when Rassilon calls to say that there’s another gala benefit something or other that he’s expected to attend. “You’ll need to have a date, so bring your lovely blonde again.”

“I’ll ask Rose,” the Doctor puts emphasis on her name, even though he is sure that Rassilon remembers it, “if she’s free. If she’s not, then it’ll only be me.” He’s tapping at the table, and Amy is sitting across from him. It’s late in the evening and she’s got her feet up on the table, crossing her legs.

Amy says, “Depending on what it is, I could go with you.”

So he adds into the phone, “Maybe.” 

“Now that you’ve got friends you can get your own plus ones. I’m never doing that again.” The Doctor knows that despite what he’s saying that Rassilon would get him a date if he couldn’t find one for himself.

The Doctor also knows that he is better off finding people his own people to spend time with. When Rassilon had chosen someone the evening had always been incredibly uncomfortable. They had had to act like the two of them had been dating, or had at least known each other, for an extended amount of time when they had only met moments before

They exchange goodbyes before hanging up and it makes the Doctor think that something is going terribly wrong. Rassilon doesn’t say goodbye, doesn’t wait for you to say goodbye back, he just hangs up the phone. He doesn’t get long to dwell on it though.

“So what might I end up going to if Rose isn’t free?” Amy’s eating ice cream, and the Doctor doesn’t want to know who she manipulated into going to get it for her. She had it when she sat down across from him, so she could have gone to get it when her break began, but that doesn’t seem very likely.

He taps on his laptop next to the track pad. “It’s this gallery party dinner gala thing. I’m not sure. I just know that I’ll have to wear my tuxedo and whoever goes with me- you, Rose, whoever- will need a new dress, and that Rassilon will probably pay for it as long as it falls under whatever guidelines he puts down.”

“That wouldn’t be too bad. I think I could handle that. Pretending to date you for a night.” She’s tapping her spoon on her lips. It’s something that he would find more distracting if it were Rose, or if he didn’t like Rory as much as he liked Amy. He still finds it distracting, but more in a ‘movement from the corner of your eye’ type way. “I’m even pretty sure that Rory would be okay with it.”

“I’ll talk to Rose first, but I’ll be sure to ask you if she’s busy.” Amy smiles and nods and goes back to eating her ice cream. The Doctor thinks about making sure that each of the girls in the TARDIS gets to go with him to something. It would be simpler that way and more fair. It would also let him avoid the people who gossip about authors thinking that he’s in a much more serious relationship than he is in.

It’s dark outside the window next to him and the streetlights are just as distracting as Amy’s spoon tapping. There are a few people just milling about. If the evening is following the same pattern as the day, it’s nice and comfortable outside, not hot but not cold.

He works until they close, and then he helps by sweeping the floor and doing other simple things. There are jokes and with an extra person Rose and Amy’s work seems to go faster.

They walk Amy to the restaurant where she’s meeting Rory and it seems like no time at all until they’re out on the street, and walking home. 

“So I’ve got another author thing to go to.”

“Yeah?” Rose is playing with the strap on her purse, sipping at the soda she had gotten when they’d dropped Amy off.

“I was wondering if you wanted to go again.” He thinks that he should have gotten something to eat while Rose was getting her drink, but even though they haven’t had leftover fast food in the apartment for weeks he’s looking forward to actually cooking. It’s not worth it just to have something to do with his hands. “You don’t have to, but you seemed to enjoy yourself last time and Rassilon seems to like you and-“

“I would love to go.” She’s grinning and him and he’s glad he asked. It would have been fine to go with Amy, but she didn’t grin like this at him at the prospect.

The Doctor just grins back at her and lets this warm feeling fill him up. “You’ll need to call Rassilon for dress advice, but it’s not until the end of this month so you’ve got plenty of time to find one.”

“Thanks for inviting me.” She says and the rest of the walk is spent chatting about what they should do for dinner.

She makes macaroni and cheese with him telling her everything to do and he makes potatoes and pork chops. Her mac and cheese ends up being incredibly delicious and proudlyshe puts the leftovers in a container to take to work in the morning.

They watch a movie and end up falling asleep curled together on the couch. The Doctor wakes up in the middle of the night and stays still for just a moment, before waking Rose up and sending her to bed. He doesn’t know what they’re doing but he really wishes that he did.

-

Almost a week later he takes a normal writing break and decides that he’ll clean the flat. He mops the floor and does all of his laundry and then sleeps the day away. Rose comes home late in the afternoon and plops into their chair, and complains loudly about the fact that she’s been working more of the later shifts than normal this week.

He sleeps through the first half of her rant, and wakes up confused, which just makes Rose start back at the beginning. The Doctor thinks that his being asleep was a good thing, because when she’s finished ranting and raving about her schedule for the second time she’s rather calm and just wants to know what the Doctor thinks they should have for dinner.

They decide on calling for pizza, because the Doctor is still half asleep and Rose doesn’t want, and shouldn’t, cook. They stay in the living room and by some miracle of Rose being in a good mood after a not entirely terrible day at work he finds that he doesn’t have to move off of the couch.

She likes the clean feeling of the kitchen floor against her feet and when she gets back in to the living room she leans over to kiss his forehead in thanks, while he continues to lay on the couch with a piece of pizza in his hand.

He wants to know when things like that will stop, when the forehead kisses and handholding on the way home from the TARDIS will disappear. It’s simple, normal things that he does with Martha, Amy and Donna, but it feels like it’s different when it’s with Rose. When he grabs her face and kisses her forehead in triumph it feels like the future. He doesn’t exact know what means but it’s what he feels.

He thinks that one day he’ll write a short story about that feeling, about having the past and present being a feeling just as real and just as wonderfully painful as joy or heartache. He doesn’t exactly know what the words would say, so instead of thinking about it more and giving himself a headache, he puts it into the folder in his head labeled ‘thoughts for later’ and moves on.

Rose puts on a musical and the Doctor can’t find it in him to get mad when she sings along.

He falls asleep a couple of times throughout the evening and early night, and wakes up to a note on the coffee table from Rose that says that she didn’t want to wake him up but that she had to go to bed. It says that the leftover pizza is in the fridge. It’s a simple note, but there’s such a tone of domesticity to it that the Doctor doesn’t know whether he wants to stick it on the fridge or if he wants to tear it into miniscule pieces and throw it away.

In the end he hides it in the back of a cabinet behind a bunch of canned goods that they always have too many of hoping that the note won’t ever be seen again, before going to sit down on the couch and get back to his editing.

-

The next couple of weeks pass in a lot of time spent in the TARDIS, and coming home more than once to find Rose on the phone with Rassilon. They’re talking about the author’s thing. The Doctor can’t quite remember what it is. He can only remember the fact that it’s happening, and the joy that had poured off of Rose when he’d asked.

The days pass and it feels like they’re building up to something. They’re having more of those moments that Donna likes to poke fun of them for, the ones where it feels like he can’t breathe and his lungs are going to explode because they’re too full.

It makes him nervous. The Doctor’s gotten so used to things in his life eventually going all crazy that he’s not sure what to do when things stay nice. It’s going to backfire in his face soon, he’s sure of that, but he’s going to enjoy while he can.

It doesn’t help that the function that he’s dragging to with him is in a few days, and he’s so deep in working that he’s not sure that he’s going to remember to shower or eat or make his hair stick up in that style that he’s so fond of.

(Right now it looks like he’s been running his hands through it non-stop while he’s frustrated.)

(That’s what he’s been doing.)

When Rose shows up for her shift on the day before the big night out, she finds the Doctor surrounded with countless crumb covered napkins, and his fingers are twitching over his keyboard do to his having had too much caffeine. She wraps something around his neck, and his brain doesn’t even jump to the logical conclusion that someone has decided to strangle him. There’s movement and something twisting, and the Doctor can feel her pulling his tie off, but it’s not coming off as smoothly as it should.

“I should have taken this off first.” Rose is leaned down close to him, and he can feel her breath moving his crazy hair and can smell her perfume and he’s sure that he stinks, but suddenly he feels calm for the first time in almost a week.

He looks down to find his second favorite blue tie sliding under a gorgeous red silk tie that doesn’t match the pinstripes on his suit at all. “What’s this?”

Rose is fiddling with it, smoothing it down under his jacket and making it lay flat. “It’s a tie.”

“I know that, but what is it doing around my neck. It doesn’t even match my suit.” He runs a finger down the side, and follows it until it disappears under a lapel.

He isn’t sure how, but the Doctor can hear Rose smiling in his ear before she speaks. “It’s for tomorrow night. It matches my dress.” His mind brings up pictures of Rose in red silk with red lipstick and he already knows that she’s going to look stunning.

“Now Doctor,” while he was thinking about how Rose smells and red rubbing from her lips onto his and the fact that he should probably sleep before tomorrow night, Rose was sneaking her hands onto his laptop. He watches her save everything, and then put the computer to sleep. “Go home and take a break. Lie on the couch and watch telly until the shaking stops and then go to bed.

“I’ll bring home Chinese and if you’re still awake you can eat some, and that’ll help your body metabolize.” She starts tucking the laptop and it’s cords, the papers, and four pens that are scattered across the table into his bag. He wonders why she’s breaking out the big words and decides to blame all of the House M.D. that she’s been watching.

She grabs the bag off of the table, and slings it onto her shoulder, before grabbing his hand and pulling him out of his chair, shushing him towards the door. “Now go! Go home. I’m going to hang onto this so that you can actually take a break.”

“But I-“ He tries to protest, but she interrupts and tells him to get out.

She glares at him until he’s out the door, and she doesn’t move until he’s past the TARDIS’ windows and he can’t see her anymore.

The walk home feels like it takes too long and not long enough at the same time. He’s still a little jittery when he tries to unlock the door and decides that he should try and make it so that he only has to snap his fingers to unlock the door.

He watches some of the things that Rose has recorded on their DVR, until he falls asleep in the season finale of some show about some different fictional show.

He wakes up enough to eat something when Rose stumbles in the door with her arms full and his laptop bag swinging around behind and beside her before she shuffles him off to bed.

-

In the morning the Doctor feels less like he’s going to collapse and more like he might be able to make it through life without having coffee injected directly into his veins.

Rose is making breakfast, and she smiles at him. “Go lay on the couch. I’ll bring this out when it’s done.”

“Why?”

“You need to rest more still. I know for a fact that before last night you hadn’t slept in six days.”

“In my defense I was really busy, and I don’t remember feeling tired at all.” He normally goes days without really needing to sleep, only doing so out of boredom or when he knows that he should, but six days was pushing it. Even for him.

“It doesn’t matter.” She waves her spatula at him, and he can almost feel bacon grease flinging onto him. “Shoo!”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that so he goes to flop across the sofa, where he stays until Rose comes in carrying two plates. She hands one to him and sits one on the table before going back into the kitchen and coming out with two mugs and two forks.

They eat together and Rose watches TV and the Doctor watches Rose and for a moment he can forget about the stress of writing and the stress of that night and can just focus and being happy and silently in love with his roommate.

He chokes on his bite of eggs and Rose asks if he’s okay. He nods and a moment later he can breathe again. That’s the first time that he’s actually put what he’s started to feel for Rose into words. He knew that he was feeling things that he wasn’t feeling for Donna or Amy or Martha, but he didn’t notice that he had fallen in love.

The Doctor wishes that he could have discovered this tomorrow or a couple of weeks ago, because now he’s got to have an undoubtedly stunning Rose on his arm all night and he has to ignore the fact that he’s in love with her.

She laughs at something on TV and it startles him back into paying attention. He’s going to have to deal with this, and not let it ruin anything.

The day passes normally after the surprise of the morning’s epiphany fades some. Rose takes a shower and then goes to her room to read and start getting ready even though they have a few hours until they need to leave.

The Doctor waits until a more reasonable time to shower and after he gets most of his tuxedo on he spends fifteen minutes looking for the red tie that Rose had given him. He finds it under the edge of his bed the rest of yesterday’s suit piled on top of it. There are magically no wrinkles in it, and he ties it on before going back to lounging on the couch.

It isn’t like last time, where he ends up waiting forever for Rose to appear and for them to almost miss the cab that was called for them. She walks out of the hall and goes into the kitchen before the Doctor can get a good look at her.

He stands up and follows her, and finds her sitting on the counter in a flowing red thing drinking a soda. It glitters in the lights of the kitchen and from outside the windows.

“You look beautiful.” He’s a little stunned even though he was expecting it.

Her lips pull back into a grin and her tongue slips between her teeth to touch the red of her lipstick. “So you like it? I wasn’t sure what you would think.”

“It’s brilliant.”

She sits her soda down and hops off of the counter, grabbing her dress so that she doesn’t step on it. Even with her not having her shoes on yet, the Doctor thinks that that would be a bad idea.

It’s only a couple of steps until they’re standing with close to no space between them. Her dress is pooling a bit around her feet, and he can feel the fabric on the top of his feet.

He can feel all of these positive feelings swelling up in him and it’s taking a lot not to just lean down and wrap his arms around her. He wants to grab the fabric of her dress and hold her close and never let her go. He wants to tangle his fingers into the curls of her hair and kiss her. The Doctor thinks that kissing Rose Tyler would be something that he would love to do for the rest of his life.

Rose gets a kind of feisty look in her eyes and there’s not much time to guess what she’s planning before she reaches up and puts her arms around his neck and pull him down. For a moment he thinks that she’s suddenly become a mind reader and feels worried, before she leans to the side and puts her lips onto his cheek.

When she pulls back, she’s laughing but the Doctor is too stunned to think of why. He stands up and straightens his jacket and rubs at the part of his hair that her hands had been in. This only seems to make her laugh more.

“What?”

“Go look in the mirror, you nutter.” She’s still smiling at him and he goes to the bathroom to check his reflection. Rose follows him and starts laughing again when she sees the surprise on his face.

He knows in his head that when lipstick covered lips touch other things, those other things get lipstick on them. He’s just never had to clean Rose Tyler’s lipstick off of his cheek before the two of them head out on what would otherwise be a date.

Rose grabs a wipe and rubs at the mark until it’s gone, before dragging him into the living room. “We’ve got time to watch something before the taxi gets here.”

It’s hard to relax when you’re in formalwear, but the two of them do their best before they slip on their shoes and head out.

When they get there they meet Rassilon and they go inside, where their pictures are taken before they head to their table so that they know where it is.

They mill around and make small talk for a while before dinner. Everyone keeps asking Rose what it’s like dating an author, and surprisingly enough she answers. It’s easier than having to keep correcting people, plus it’s nice to think that Rose and he are dating.

Things are fine until dinner, when things start getting hectic. They’re sitting with the Master this time and he’s brought Lucy again, though she seems to be the Master’s fiancé now.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” The Master says grabbing Lucy’s hand and pressing a kiss into the back of it. It would be sweet if it didn’t look almost menacing. “We’re very lucky to have each other. Like you and Miss Tyler.”

The Doctor flushes at the misconception there and how much he wishes it were true in the way that the Master means. “Yes, I’m very lucky to have her. She’s made me a better person but it’s not like that.”

He wants to look at Rose and see what her face is doing but instead he looks from the Master to Rassilon to where his waiter has just sat his plate in front of him. A moment later he does look over at Rose and she seems quietly pleased about something. He hopes it’s him and not the food on her plate.

They get through dinner and the talks that people give, but it feels like everything is wrong, like he threw something off by saying out loud that Rose was important to him. He hopes that when they get home things will go back to normal.

When Rassilon finally shuffles them into their cab Rose has had a few glasses of wine and she’s flushed and loose and less happy than she is when she’s like this normally. Even though the Doctor drank as much as she did, he’s feeling the same as always, if more tired and embarrassed.

Rose stays quiet for most of the ride home, and when the car drops them off she stops him before they go into the building. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Tell you what?” The Doctor knows what she’s talking about but he has been hoping to avoid this conversation since dinner. “I tell you everything.”

“Not everything.” She looks almost angry and the Doctor had been seriously trying to avoid that. “Why didn’t you tell me that I made you better, that you feel lucky to have me. I’m the one that should feel lucky. Mum was asking the other day if I was ever going to come back to living with her, and I had to tell her that I didn’t want to. That I want to stay with you forever, and that’s crazy.” She reaches up to run a hand through her hair, and the gesture looks wrong. That’s not something that she normally does, that’s something that he does that she has picked up from him. “We’re not even together, but I want to be with you forever. That’s not normal.”

“Did it need saying?” The Doctor asks and he knows that he should have told her. That he should have let her know that he needs her to be in his life, but he just couldn’t and before today he tried his best not to think about it.

All Rose can do is nod her head a bit and somehow that gives him courage to put a hand on her arm, lean forward, they’re pretty much the same height with her heels on, and whisper in her ear.

“I’m in love with you.” He trails his hand down her arm and grabs onto her hand, taking strength from her when he isn’t even sure if she wants to give it to him. 

When he leans back to look at her, he’s not sure what her face is saying. She lets go of his hand, and that says enough that he doesn’t worry about trying to decipher it.

That’s why it comes as a shock when her hands fist in his lapels and pull their mouths together, but it only takes a second for him to wrap his arms around her and pull her closer.

When they pull their faces apart, the Doctor can’t seem to unwrap his arms from around her, and Rose seems content to leave her arms where they moved to wrap around his neck. “We only get one life, Rose Tyler, and I would love to spend mine with you.”

“Good,” She says before leaning in to kiss him again.

-

EPILOGUE:

When The Doctor walks into the TARDIS and he thinks that something is different. The atmosphere or something but it’s odd.

“Hello, Clara!” Clara is the newest of the workers having finally been hired after months of trying to find someone who could work well with the rest of the team. (Jenny had been nice, but had had to quit for reasons that she wouldn’t tell anyone. Vastra had tried to wear a hat and veil at all times, and don’t even get him started with Strax.) “Is Rose here?”

“Yup. But you’re not allowed to see her. Not right now at least.” Clara is cleaning the counter, and the Doctor can tell that she’s counting how many tables she needs to bus.

“Why can’t I see her?” The Doctor is whining and he knows it but that doesn’t stop him.

“Because Donna said so, now. What d’you want?”

He orders his drink and then goes to sit at his normal table. He starts working on a short story that he’s writing having decided that he can’t focus on his novel right now.

He doesn’t have to wait long for someone else to join him at the table. “She looks amazing.”

Donna is smiling and looks like she might be proud. It makes his heart swell. “She always looks amazing but what are you talking about?” He moves his hands off of the keyboard and grabs his cup. He’s working on focusing on only one thing at a time even though everyone else knows that it’s a lost cause.

“Rose got the dress today. She’s trying it on with Sarah Jane and Amy in the back. It’s gorgeous. You won’t be able to keep your hands off of her.”

A grin appears on the Doctor’s face and Donna’s smile grows to match it. “I’m so nervous though.”

“You’ll do fine, spaceman.” The grin is still on his face but it’s less manic and more content. If Donna really thinks that he can do this, and Rose definitely thinks that he can, then he’s sure that he’ll be okay.

Clara yells over at them a second to ask if Donna will man the counter while she goes to see the dress.

“Sure,” Donna calls back, before standing up to start clearing off a table. She always wants to make sure that she’s not just standing there bored.

The Doctor stands up and Donna seems to fling herself at him. They hug tightly and she whispers encouragements in his ear before they both get back to work.

-

It feels like ages pass before Clara, Sarah Jane and Amy all make their way out of the back. They all give him words of encouragement and take a few minutes to sit with him before leaving to work, or in Sarah’s case to pick up Luke.

He doesn’t notice when Rose slips out of the back though, too focused in his writing until she stands behind him and leans down to wrap her arms around him. “Hello,” she says into his ear.

“Hi.” He’s grinning and reaches up to grab at one of her hands, but keeps her arms where they are.

“I love you,” she says, and he can’t stop himself from asking the same thing that he always does. “How long are you going to stay with me?”

And she answers with the same word that she always does. “Forever.”

After that he just has to turn his head and kiss her, before he has to drag her left hand up to his mouth just so that he can kiss that too.


End file.
